Input device for web content manager responsive to browser viewers&#39; psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiological stress indicators

ABSTRACT

A bioelectrode input device, including a phone has control through buttons, electrodes, and sensors along its body for connection with the mastoid process, condyle, pinna (auricle), and the ear canal. The bioelectrode input device also may sensors for breath analysis, voice stress analysis, decibel analysis, galvanic skin response, body and head posture recognition monitor (a level), facial recognition device, voice signature analyzer and authentication, EMG, pulse oximeter, thermometer, electromagnetic radiant monitor, body fluid, earwax and pheromone analyzer.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/693,677, filed Oct. 19, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,904,408 and ofapplication Ser. No. 11/145,730, filed Jun. 6, 2005. Applicant alsoclaims priority based on U.S. Provisional Patent Application No.60/688,137, filed Jun. 6, 2005

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to measurement of, galvanic skin response(GSR) temperature, pulse rate, blood volume pulse, respiration, voicestress, posture, decibel, EMG, body fluid, ear wax, andelectromyographic EMG voltages present in and at the ear while a personis using a computer or cell phone. The invention becomes the inputdevice for the invention described in applicants' patent No. U.S. Pat.No. 6,904,408 and application Ser. No. 11/145,730

The present invention relates to website media content controls used tomake real-time selections of media displayed to a consumer viewer of awebsite and methods for selecting the materials that will satisfy theviewer, meet targets of advertisers to specific audiences and induce thesale of merchandise/download pay-for-use media. More particularly, thepresent invention pertains to a BioNet method, system and personalizedweb content manager used to customize the web browsing experience of theviewer and facilitate online sales by web site merchandisers, the BioNetmethod and system being responsive to browser viewers' psychologicalpreferences in a legacy database, and at least one of available realtime observable behavioral signals that indicate attention and stress.The real time observable behavioral emotional indicators include skintemperature, pulse rate, heart rate, blood pulse volume, respirationrate, respiration volume, EMG electromyogram, EEG electroencephalogram,ERP evoked response potential a specialized EEG, voice stress, gesturerecognition (video face tracking, eye motion, limb-hand finger pointtracking, infra red jaw motion or clenching, sweat/GSR galvanic skinresistance, pupil dilation, eye blink response, drug and hormone levelsvia sweat chemical analyzer, which are obtained by computer accessoriessuch as a video camera on a PC/workstation, a voice stress analyzer on aPC workstation or independent IP network vehicles, BioPhone, BioMouse,BioHeadband, BioBand, BioRemote control, 2way BioPager, BioVRVisor.BioNet method, system and personalized web content manager advances ofthe art of managing web content by web servers and ad servers in thefield of filtering, analyzing the time series of browser users clickscalled click-stream in real time using the behavioral and physiologicalsignals as a personal signature of the browser operator creatingemotional footprints or track taken toward or away from onlinepurchases. Several heading discuss relevant prior inventions upon whichthe present invention depends.

2. General Background and State of the Art

Since the invention of the mouse at Xerox Parc and the application inApple computers, IBM personal computers and work-stations the mouse hasbecome primary source of control and input for computers. There are nowother input devices, including joysticks, gloves, and touch pads.Cellular phones have become widely used input/output devices forconnecting to the World Wide Web due to their convenience and wirelessfeature among other persons.

When the Internet was considered an information highway, search toolswere needed to sort through the millions of documents available to findthose that were of interest. Search engines were invented to automatethe process of sorting and ranking materials by relevance. Prior artinventions relate to information retrieval include U.S. Pat. No.5,784,608 by Meske -Hypertext information retrieval using profiles andtopics relate to selection of information of interest, in which aclient/server model for information retrieval of online informationresources which includes the receipt of a plurality of informationorganized by profile and topic in a first markup language, and theparsing of the plurality of information into portions of information ina second markup language, including anchors referencing each of theportions of information to allow hypertext viewing and accessing. TheMeske patent emphasized the use of SGML Standard General Markup Languageas a second markup language to provide keys to selected informationsegments within email and news articles from the Internet, and on-lineservices, filtering the vast amount of information which is available inorder that a user obtains that information which is of interest to theviewer.

Recent U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,539 by Cohen shows systems have evolved tointelligent information retrieval system that finds matches to requestwith information, scores the relative merit of the matches, and displaysthe matches in ranked order. Websites used for searches such asAltaVista.com, Yahoo.com, AskJeeves.com, Google.com, Lycos.com,Excite.com and others utilize automated bots that collect informationand use a stored index for rapid retrieval. The search engines includetypical components (a) finder/locater of sources of information, (b) asource repository for storing the locations of information; (c) asampler for sampling messages from the located source of information;(d) a matcher for determining a matching score for the retrievedmessage; and (e) a message repository for storing the retrieved messageand the matching score.

The personal search systems are becoming more personalized for examplethe U.S. Pat. No. 5,890,152 by Rapaport is a “Personal Feedback Browserfor Obtaining Media Files” that uses a personal profile databaseobtaining media files from the Internet. Selected media files aredisplayed based on user-specified information stored in the personalprofile database, which includes, the interests, attitude/aptitude,reading comprehension and tastes of a user.

The GroupLens System was developed means to gather research data onpersonalized recommendation systems. The ROC collaborative filter isoutlined in U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,199 to Brad Miller et al. entitled“System and method and article of manufacture for using receiveroperating curves to evaluate predictive utility” NetPerceptions hasemployed this system for several years as stated in a press releasedated Nov. 15, 1996 in which they announced “Net Perceptions ShowcasesGroupLens Collaborative Filtering Technology At Biennial CSCWConference. Net Perceptions today will be demonstrating applications ofits GroupLens™ collaborative filtering technology. Net Perceptions is acorporate sponsor of the CSCW 96 conference, and will host an afternoonreception at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge from 3:30-7 p.m. on Tuesday,November 19, where new applications and technologies will bedemonstrated. The GroupLens research project was first reported at CSCW94 by the University of Minnesota team that pioneered the groundbreakingtechnology. The GroupLens collaborative filtering toolkit offers webmarketers an affordable and flexible way to track consumer behavior andcustomize web contact for each consumer according to that consumer'spreferences and interests.”

The GroupLens system is an article recommendation system for electronicforums, specifically Usenet news. The purpose of GroupLens is toincrease the value of time spent reading electronic forums. Internetnewsgroups can carry hundreds of new postings every day. Many of thesearticles are off the newsgroup topic, and many more are not personallyinteresting to you. It is no longer feasible to read every articleposted to a newsgroup in order to find interesting content. TheGroupLens system makes reading Internet news productive again byhighlighting articles of likely interest and warning against articlesthat will not be interesting.

In the arena of online sales a repeated visit to a website, for examplea travel site, permits the web site media provider to specificallyconfigure the site to match the interests, travel tastes (outlined bybooking queries for travel at specific times to specific destinations),spending habits and credit card buying behavior (history) of theconsumer. Observation of behaviors during web browsing and the resultantclick through to a buy or abandonment of the web page allows implicitinferences to be made concerning the buyer's motivation and potentiallyselecting the customized view best suited to the consumer and evenpredicting future buying choices. Fore example identifying the interestsand automatically sending particular marketing messages through web adsor email can make the visit more accommodating to the consumer visitor.Assuming a consistent behavior pattern exists, the web site may offer aquick response tailored to the individual desires. The site thatresponds becomes a sticky site that is revisited and more information isaccumulated at each visit making each successive visit potentially moreuser friendly.

When limited individual personal information is available, the undefinedinterests attitudes and tastes may be matched via identification ofcommon interests using a correlation of known variable characteristicsor classification of individuals that may have associated common values.This is the so called “Group lens” or collaborative filter described inP. Resnick et al., “GroupLens: An Open Architecture for CollaborativeFiltering of Netnews,” reprinted from Proceedings of ACM 1999 Conferenceon Computer Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 175-186. Breese et al. (seebelow) noted that where there are a large number of possibleassociations between variables, the large number of possibilitiespresents a challenge to decide which elements of the personal profiledatabase should be used for classification of common interests. Only thestrongest interests may be of useful predictive value. U.S. Pat. No.6,018,738 to Breese et al. entitled “Methods and apparatus for matchingentities and for predicting an attribute of an entity based on anattribute frequency value” can use harmonized The values of theattributes may be adjusted based on number of entities that have valuesfor a particular attribute so that the values decrease as the numberincreases. The attributes of the entities may be harmonized and providedwith default values so that entities being matched have commonattributes defined by the union of the attributes of the entities beingmatched. The attributes of the entities may be expanded and providedwith default values so that the entities being matched have attributesthat neither had originally. The match values may be normalized toprovide a weight value, which may be used to predict an attribute valueof a new entity, based on known attribute values of known entities. Theweight values may be tuned such that relatively high weights areamplified and relatively low weights are suppressed.

In many instances, the personal buying characteristics are multi facetedand unpredictable. Personalities and behaviors are as unique andpersonally individualized as handwriting. Due to the similar complexityof the problem of handwritten word recognition problem, some handwritingrecognition methods may be useable in observation of consumer behaviorat web sites. Many pattern recognition patents focus on recognition ofhandwritten characters. U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,464 to Kojima “CharacterRecognition Method and Apparatus, Including Generation of a Degree ofBelief” that describes a certainty factor which approximates theprobability that the recognized characters are valid. The handwritingproblem is similar in that the endless variation allows the complexityof the problem to increase and add new variables to be observed tracked,analyzed, and evaluated for suitability and predictive value.

The present system affords another “hard to deceive” and practicallyunconsciously monitored parameters which instantly indicate significantviewer responses to web media impressions.

Computer Systems with Browsers and Display Devices in Ever SmallerPackages: Prior Art FIG. 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,608 shows a standardworkstation or personal computer web browser. The updated workstationwith BioData input devices is shown in FIG. 7 and described in detailbelow in preferred embodiment is a computer system, such as aworkstation, personal computer or other processing apparatus in whichthe client 50 operates a browser 200 or a server 150 may be operative isillustrated in FIG. 8. A web appliance browser, two way email device,mini-browser devices using WAP, wireless application protocol, new 3Gwireless standard, or NTT DoCoMo Japanese standard may be a platform fora browser. A workstation in which one implementation of the presentinvention may be practiced includes system comprises a bus or othercommunication means for communicating information, and a processingmeans coupled with bus for processing information, a random accessmemory (RAM) or other volatile storage device (main memory), coupled tobus for storing information and instructions to be executed byprocessor. Main memory also is used for storing temporary variables orother intermediate information during execution of instructions byprocessor. System also comprises a read only memory (ROM) and/or otherstatic storage device coupled to bus for storing static information andinstructions for processor, and a data storage device such as a magneticdisk or optical disk and its corresponding disk drive both fixed andremovable. Data storage device is coupled to bus for storing informationand instructions. This may be used for storage of the various files tobe described here including profiles, indices, temporary cached webinformation, topics and files.

System coupled to a display device, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT) orliquid crystal display (LCD) or a VR visor to bus coupled for displayinginformation to a computer user. Such a display may further be coupled tobus via a frame buffer, which information such as a single or multipleframes or images for display upon display device. A keyboardalphanumeric input device, including alphanumeric and other keys, mayalso be coupled to bus for communicating information and commandselections to processor. A voice recognition processor may take the roleof the alphanumeric input device. An additional user input device iscursor control, such as a mouse, a push-pointer, a trackball, stylus, orcursor direction keys, coupled to bus for communicating directioninformation and command selections to processor, and for controllingcursor movement on display.

Note, also, that any or all of the components of system and associatedhardware may be used in various embodiments; however, it can beappreciated that any configuration of the system may be used for variouspurposes according to the particular implementation. The componentsdescribed above may be implemented on a device of a very small size bybuilding a system on a chip (SOC) that incorporates microcircuits whichperform the functions of the building blocks through construction of asingle chip built with components which use IP intellectual propertymodules that allow construction of various memory processor and datatransfer components as constructed with custom application specificintegrated circuits ASIC's and DSP digital signal processing modules.Bio Remote control 340, BioPhone wireless 341, and 2way BioPager 342 andBhopal Pocket PC are self contained wireless devices include within asystem on a chip or miniature system with the RAM ROM CPU and Massstorage as well as BioData sensors and device controls and mini-browserdisplays and sometimes audio speakers or headphones. In particular FIG.7 shows the evolution of smaller and smaller portable devices for webbrowsing including BioRemote controls for interactive TV, WebTV and settop cable or satellite receiver boxes 340, PDA's personal digitalassistants with wireless modem communication Palm Pilot® device from3Com and Pocket PC 343, 2 way pagers with email and biosensors 342,cellular telephones that incorporate small lower resolution displays,DSP digital signal processors and very low-power microprocessors andbiosensors such as the BioPhone wireless 343.

One skilled in the art appreciates that the following methods andapparatus may be implemented in special purpose hardware devices, suchas discrete logic devices, large scale integrated circuits (LSI's),application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC's), or other specializedhardware. Other programming languages, C, BasicC, C++ and otheroperating systems such as Unix, Posix, and variations of Linuxplatforms.

Personalization and customization of the Web browser helps to get theconsumer buyer what she or he wants to buy and helps sellers to sell byunderstanding what motivates buyers to buy: Boston Consulting Group hasreported that eMarket-places will increase competitive pressures ononline sellers as buyers are increasingly able to comparison shop.Twenty-five percent of sellers surveyed had already decreased prices dueincremental price pressures as their customers went online. By 2004,another 50% expected to also decrease their prices. In response to thisthreat (referred to by BCG as “commoditization”), sellers intend to cutcosts, increase differentiation or both. The customization orpersonalization of Web content is the most effective way to offer theconsumer exactly what they want.

The process of getting the consumer what she or he wants must offerexplicit value for the customer and requires the steps of the vendorgathering data about the customer, converting the information todifferentiate customers and then customizing each offer, communicationand interaction to offer explicit value for customers and in so doingmeeting the vendor's objectives of building customer value whileretaining revenue, profitability and customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The messages intended to reach a consumer may be very different withdistinct executions for different types of consumers. For example EddieBauer has identified the “Help me choose” consumer who is too busy toshop and requires values and themes which focus on convenience,durability and practicality, size availability help to made expedient,you deserve something attitude and a solution oriented program. Incontrast, the “Spice up your wardrobe” approach focuses on professionalshoppers and provides upscale themes that include updates styles ofclassic look, options to spice up wardrobe, national brand trusted forquality, a fun attitude, orientation toward spontaneity. It is helpfulto categorize shoppers into these profiles based on preferencesexplicitly given by consumers and by inference from consumer behavior.

Broadvision and Macromedia LikeMinds Personalization Server and Vignetteencourage visitors to become repeat customers by offering a Web sitethat interacts with visitors individually and in real time, and quicklydirects visitors to personally relevant content and products they arelikely to purchase. The software is added to an existing web server orto a distributed server environment where media content is controlled bythe LikeMinds Server. Macromedia LikeMinds enables you to meet thesechallenges by delivering highly-accurate product recommendations,personally relevant content and targeted promotions for each individualWeb visitor. The Macromedia's Like Minds system requires hardwareplatform, web server and database software. Typical systems include aWintel (“Windows and Intel”) Platform Windows NT® Server 4.0, DualPentium® processor, 1 GB RAM, 1 GB Hard Disk real time or a SunPlatforms Solaris 2.6, 2.7, Dual UltraSPARC-II, 1 GB RAM, 1 GB Hard Diska Web Server such as Microsoft Internet Information Server (ActiveServer Pages), Netscape Enterprise Server (Live Wire), Any JSP-compliantWeb server, or Any CGI-compliant Web server with Other Interfacesincluding COM, C, C++, Java and a Database Server Oracle 8 and 8i(native), SQL Server 7.0.

A personal interactive selling system for reducing the sales assistanceprovided by live personnel has been introduced and patented.

SAS e-Intelligence indicated the objective is to build customer valuerevenue profitability and satisfaction. SAS has made the well knownpoint “The more product complexity increases, the more guided selling isnecessary for e-commerce success” in an online slide presentation shownin FIG. 3C.

Neural network systems have optimized the personalization of websitesand identification of consumer subgroups particularly identifying thesubgroup that engages in online fraud: Human-like learning throughneural networks can provide better even better results. When multipleneural networks are paralleled into one architecture such as NestorLearning Systems (http://www.nestor.com/) generalize and discriminateamong consumer groups. Differentiation is important to help eliminateconsumer credit card fraud by recognizing behavior that fits a profileof a potentially fraudulent transaction. A recent article sidebarentitled “Most fraud detection tools command a hefty price, but that'sstarting to change” Dec. 13, 1999 PC Week (now called E-week) featurearticle “Strategies—Cutting Out e-fraud” described three solutions.Internet Fraud Screen from CyberSource, a 1997 a spinoff fromBeyond.com, a SAS customer, uses artificial intelligence and advancedmathematics to compare new transactions with characteristics of millionsof transactions in a database and assign a risk factor to eachtransaction. HNC Software's eFalcon uses neural network technology toferret out fraudulent transactions. Clear Commerce Corp's FraudShieldreleased a fraud detection system. Nestor Inc released Prism to detectfraudulent online transactions that is based on neural networks.Characteristics that fit a profile of a potentially fraudulenttransaction are for example a combination of the use of PO Box as amailing address, the use of a free non-traceable email box like Juno orHotMail as a mailing address, a non working telephone number, and thedelivery of high cost credit card purchases to an address that is notthe same as the credit card billing address. These transactions aredouble checked before shipment of goods occurs.

Multimedia type preferences for animation rich media and chat vary fromconsumer to consumer and vary with the type of browser that isavailable: Less than 20% e-retailers are using web technologies such asJava, Flash, or chat functions to enhance the sales experience,according to a recent Jupiter Communications survey (August 2000reported in eMarketer). Jupiter also reported that 60% of merchantsbased upgrading user-interface technologies on customer feedback.However, surveying consumers, Jupiter found that more than 50% ofshoppers would use such rich media technologies. Specifically, 56% woulduse virtual dressing rooms and 51% would use zoom-and-spin technologies.

The dynamic nature of web interfaces presents big challenges. Someweb-based media types are interactive and send new output to the userinterface in discrete blocks, in response to user input or messages fromthe web server; others (such as animated graphics) continuously changetheir output without requiring any external stimulus. Moreover, theappearance of a web page is determined by the browser and modified byoptions set on the user's browser (e.g. a user can instruct the browsernot to display graphics nor do WAP Wireless Application Protocolconnected Internet devices such as two way pagers and Internet readycell phones which have no high pixel density graphics display).Personalized interfaces mean that different users may interact with theweb page differently on quite different user interfaces but the websitedelivers highly-accurate product recommendations, personally relevantcontent, and targeted promotions for each individual Web visitor.

For the foregoing reasons and critical limitation of the displays,wireless mobile systems will require the use of much focused ads with aconcise message. Research by Ovum http://www.ovum.com/ discussed mobileadvertising and its differences from Web marketing. Ovum advisedpotential mobile advertisers to use a highly targeted, low-volume,high-value model where users have a strong element of control over thenumber, type, and timing of ads received. Data privacy concernsregarding releasing cell phone numbers and list of services desired tomarketers makes users' cooperation in accepting advertising critical.This means the advertising must support services that are vulnerable tochanges by users on an ongoing basis to users, and it will require atrading-off compromised privacy for convenience.

None of these preferences uses continuous Biosignal feedback to confirmthe successful match of content with suggestion that is no systemsdetermines whether suggested content based a viewer's demographic and orpsychological profile and collaborative filter is what the viewerdesires. A null hypothesis test is performed whenever media ispresented. The present system includes a monitored physiologic responsethat is used as feedback and combined with demographic/psychologicalbackground information and behavioral history to determine theunconscious of subliminal viewer responses. The unconscious stressindicators can be use with a null hypothesis test to determine if thematerial is stress inducing. The null hypothesis is more stress is moreinterest, that is less boredom. When interest is aroused, it is morelikely to produce the desired result, a sale. The presence or absence ofstress alone is not an indicator of interest or possibility of futurepurchases. Stress must be evaluated in context through neural networkanalysis of the whole situation

Dimensional Database Storage in Tables That Allow View and Analysis ofTime Associated Data: A dimensional database may be implemented using aconventional relational database program such as the Oracle 8.1 productcommercially available from Oracle Corporation of Redwood Shores, Calif.or the Microsoft Access and SQL7 products commercially available fromMicrosoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. Virtual databases may also beused, treating several databases as if they were a single data-base.Conventional relational databases with specialized tools for On-LineAnalytical Processing, or OLAP-optimized databases may also be used.Such databases are sometimes referred to as MOLAP, ROLAP or DOLAPdatabases and are described at http://www.sentrytech.com/dw05dem.htm.Non-database implementations such as those storing data using objects,records, arrays or flat files may be used to implement dimensionaldatabases. Keys may be implemented using conventional pointers orlook-up table approaches.

Methods for physically storing temporal data are well known and newerdevelopments U.S. Pat. No. 6,003,024 to Bair—Amazon.com shows a Systemand method for selecting rows from dimensional databases as thosedatabases are expanded with more data associated with time in a mannerthat creates yet another table that allows searching for data rows thatare collected over a time series Temporal query primitive functions maythen be applied to the dimension tables in a manner that permitscomparison of events and data that changes over time. Of particularinterest in this patent is the activity of a person viewing media,typically a files or pages on a website and the sequence of files viewedand actions performed that leads toward a purchase of a product orservice.

Methods for Acquiring Psychological and Physiological Information from aWeb Browser Viewer: Well-known tools such as the Myers Briggspersonality test and the Kersey temperament sorter. The Jungianpersonality profile has been combined with speech analysis for purposesof “lie detection” in a personal computer system described in U.S. Pat.No. 6,006,188 to Bogdashevsky. Heretofore, systems of this type have notyet been implemented on line for entertainment or sales purposes.

Guided Selling Systems that Automate and Improve the Online SalesProcess with Human-like Interactions: U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,149 by Tavordescribes a virtual sales representative for assisting a customer in theselection of a purchase product from an e-shop virtual shop, and moreparticularly, to software which is capable of assisting a computer userto complete an on-line sales transaction in a substantially similarmanner as a human sales representative, providing advice and interactingin a conversation like fashion with the browser. The automatic salesagents evolved from interactive tools used to sell mortgages byBrightStreet.

Broadband Systems that Allow Multiple Communications Channels to Reachthe Home and Provide Information Selected to Match User ProfileAccording to User's Priority and Available Bandwidth, Capability forVarious Types of Messaging, Media Graphics, Streaming Media, HighQuality Sound: U.S. Pat. No. 6,044,403 by Gerszberg of AT&T shows aNetwork server platform for Internet, JAVA server and video applicationserver that enables high speed Internet connections through two wirehigh speed copper wire connections over the existing single twisted pairusing xDSL transmission schemes and coupled to a network server toprovide a vast array of new services to customers. Network serversincluding a relaying host an intelligent services director (ISD) at thecustomer services equipment and a facilities management platform (FMP)at the local office allows new services such as simultaneous, multiplecalls (voice analog or digital), facsimile, Internet trafficconnectivity, videophone, utility metering, broadcasting, multicasting,bill viewing, information pushing in response to a user profile,directory look-up and other services that can be implemented via anetwork server platform via this architecture. A network server platformfor hosting a plurality of services comprises, for example, a memory forstoring a user profile, the user profile containing interests of a user,and for storing information related to their interests and a controllerfor controlling the collection of information from information serversand for pushing the collected information to the user in accordance withtheir defined priority.

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS AND BACKGROUND

Ad: For web advertising, an ad is usually a banner, a graphic image of adesignated pixel, size and byte size limit. It is usually an animatedGIF (a series of pictures displayed in a repetition that appears tomove). Banners and other special advertising that include an interactiveelement, a high quality audio or visual element beyond the usual areknown as rich media. Multiple locations on a given page may be availablefor ads.

Ad Media type: The medium for the ad, be it HTML text with tags thatcontrol characteristics (color size font design and table layout), smallphotos and art (GIF Graphic Interchange Format), banner ad, higherquality larger photographs (.jpg Joint Photographic Expert Group),simple audio (.wav) or synthesized music, streaming media audio(QuickTime™, REAL™ Audio or Windows™ Media Player).

Ad rotation: Ads are often rotated into ad spaces from a list. This isusually done automatically by software on the web site or at a centralsite administered by an ad broker or server facility that it sellsimpressions and sponsorships and tracks impressions for a network of websites.

Ad space: An ad space is a sellable space on a web page that is reservedfor ads. A group of spaces within a web site that share the samecharacteristics can be sold as an ad space group so that an ad purchasecan be made for the group of spaces.

Ad view: An ad view is the same as an ad impression, that is a usually afull view single ad that appears “above the fold” on a web page when thepage arrives at the viewer's display. A web page may offer space for anumber of different ad views banners sidebars and pop ups.

Affiliate marketing: Affiliate marketing is the use by a web site thatsells products of other web sites, called affiliates, to help market theproducts. The relationship implies that web sites pay commissions onsales made Amazon.com, the bookseller, created the first affiliateprogram and hundreds of other companies have followed since.

Banner: A banner is an advertisement in the form of a graphic image thatis located across a top of a web page or is positioned in a margin orother space reserved for ads. Banner ads are usually GIF GraphicsInterchange Format images that load quickly. Size limits on the file aremade so that the ad file will display quickly. Most ads are animatedGIF's since animation has been shown be attractive to users. Size rangesfrom 1 k or 3 k to 70 or 90 k for animated GIF's. Most banners are 468pixels wide by 60 pixels high. Smaller sizes include 125 by 125 and 120by 90 pixels. Banner sizes have been established as standard sizes bythe Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Beyond the banner Besides banner ads other ways to use the Internet tocommunicate a marketing message include: sponsoring a web site or afeature on it; e-mail newsletter ads; co-branding sharing (logodisplays) with another company and its web site; contest promotion andother new ways to engage and interact with the desired audience. “Beyondthe banner” may be a media rich banner, splash pages (interstitials thatshow up in a new browser window) and streaming video infomercials.

Browser: A browser is an application program that provides a way to lookat and interact with all the information on the World Wide Web. The word“browser” seems to have originated prior to the Web as a generic termfor user interfaces that let you browse text files online. When thefirst Web browser with a graphical user interface was invented (Mosaic,in 1992), the term seemed to apply to Web content, too. Technically, aWeb browser is a client program that uses the Hypertext TransferProtocol (HTTP) to make requests of Web servers throughout the Interneton behalf of the browser user. Parts of Mosaic went into the firstwidely used browser, Netscape Navigator, and Microsoft InternetExplorer. With a few exceptions such as Opera, these Navigator andInternet Explorer browsers are the only two browsers that the vastmajority of Internet users have today. Online services, such as AmericaOnline, CompuServe, and Prodigy, had their own browsers, but now offerthe customized versions of Netscape (Mozilla) or Microsoft browser. Thenewer version of these two browsers have the ability to run appletprograms in Java™ or Active X extensions to HTML.

Caching: To speed up viewing and save bandwidth, a user's browser withan internal cache, network cache servers and proxy servers save recentlyviewed files to avoid having to resend files before each view. Using acache of pages in a cache server or the user's computer means that somead views will not be known by the ad counting programs and is a sourceof concern. Although preventing caching gives a more accurate count,specifying no caching for all pages means that users will have slowertime to view from each click.

Click: is an action that requests the view of a web page. According toad industry recommended guidelines from FAST, a click is “when a visitorinteracts with an advertisement.” This does not apparently mean simplyinteracting with a rich media ad, but actually clicking on it so thatthe visitor is headed toward the advertiser's destination. (It also doesnot mean that the visitor actually waits to fully arrive at thedestination, but just that the visitor started going there.)

Click stream: A click stream is a recorded path of the pages a userrequested in going through one or more web sites. Click streaminformation helps web site owners understand how visitors are usingtheir site and which pages are viewed the most. Advertisers learn howusers get to the client's pages, what pages they look at, and how theygo about ordering a product. This is the most important behavioralrecord available for use in determining a user profile

Clickthrough: A clickthrough is what is counted by the sponsoring siteas a result of an ad click. In practice, click and clickthrough tend tobe used interchangeably. A clickthrough, however, seems to imply thatthe user actually received the page instead of request only. Someadvertisers are willing to pay only for clickthroughs rather than for adimpressions

Click rate: Often called CTR or clickthrough rate, click rate is thepercentage of ad views that resulted in clickthroughs. A clickthrough isan indication of the ad's effectiveness and it results in the viewergetting to the advertiser's web site where other messages can beprovided. A click to an immediate product order window can lead to aquick sale. Evaluation of clickthrough based on the campaign objectives,how enticing the banner message is, how explicit the message is (ateaser message is more likely to be clicked), audience/message matching,how new the banner is, how often it is displayed to that particularuser. Reports n general, show click rates for high-repeat, brandingbanners vary from 0.15 to 1%. Ads with provocative, mysterious, or othercompelling content can induce click rates ranging from 1 to 5% andsometimes higher. The click rate for any given ad tends to shrink uponrepetition.

Cookie: A cookie is a file on a web user's hard drive (it's kept in oneof the sub-directories under the browser file directory) that is used byweb sites to record data about the user. Multiple cookies may come fromthe same website. There may be a cookie that is associated with aspecific individual session. Cookies help control multiple ad sequencesby telling the web page server which ad the user has just seen so that adifferent ad will be rotated into the next page view.

Cost-per-action: (CPA) Cost-per-action is what an advertiser pays foreach visitor that takes some specifically defined action in response toan ad beyond simply clicking on it. For example, a visitor might visitan advertiser's site and request to be subscriber to their newsletter.

Cost-per-lead: This is a yield figure for cost-per-action. Statisticscan account for visitors that provide enough information to be used as asales lead. This overall figure can be estimated regardless of how thead is purchased. It may include other promotional costs giveaways rafflecosts free subscriptions and others.

Cost-per-sale (CPS): Sites that sell products directly from their website or can otherwise determine sales generated as the result of anadvertising sales lead can calculate the cost-per-sale of webadvertising.

Coulomb network: Relaxation Model for Memory with High Storage Densityby Charles M. Bachmann et al.—Neural Networks, pp. 1-9. A neural networksystem is considered in which memories of events have already beenrecorded in a layer of cells. A method is found for the consolidation ofthe number of memories required to correctly represent the patternenvironment in N dimensions using an expansion and contraction of areas.Refer to U.S. Pat. No. 4,897,811 by Scofield, entitled N-dimensionalcoulomb neural network that provides for cumulative learning of internalrepresentations. This is one of several methods useable for reducing thecomplexity of the neural network to a minimal cumber of neural circuitsnecessary so that the network can operate more rapidly.

CPM: CPM is “cost per thousand” ad impressions, an industry standardmeasure for selling ads on web sites. This measure is taken from printadvertising.

CPTM: CPTM is “cost per thousand targeted” ad impressions, apparentlyimplying that the audience you are selling is targeted to particulardemographics.

Demographics: Demographics are data about the size and characteristicsof a population or audience (including for example, gender, age group,income group, purchasing history, personal preferences, and so forth).

Domain Name: A domain name locates an organization or other entity onthe Internet. For example, the domain name www.totalbaseball.com locatesan Internet address for “totalbaseball.com” at Internet point 199.0.0.2(and a particular host server named “www”. The “com” part of the domainname reflects the purpose of the organization or entity (in thisexample, “commercial”) and is called the top-level domain name. The“totalbaseball” part of the domain name defines the organization orentity and together with the top-level is called the second-level domainname. The second-level domain name maps to and can be thought of as the“readable” version of the Internet address. Seehttp://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,211987,00.html for thesource of this definition. The principal domain name standards are RFC1034—Domain Names Concepts and Facilities available atftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1034.txt and RFC 1035—Domain NamesImplementation and Specification ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1035.txt.

FAST: FAST is a coalition of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), theANA, and the ARF that has recommended or is working on guidelines forconsumer privacy, ad models and creative formats, audience and adimpression measurement, and a standard reporting template together witha standard insertion order. FAST originated with Proctor and Gamble'sFuture of Advertising Stakeholders Summit in August 1998. FAST's firstguideline, available in March 1999, was a guideline on “BasicAdvertising Measures.”

Filtering: Filtering is the immediate analysis by a program of a user(click) request to determine which ad(s) to return in the requestedpage. A web page request combined with information using the userviewer's cookie files, IP address, login id and using a marketingdatabase can by identify a an individual or a member of a cluster ofusers that can tell a web site or its ad server whether it fits acertain characteristic such as coming transferring from a particularcompany's address or that the user is using a particular level ofbrowser with versions with Java, ActiveX, multimedia plug-ins oradvanced HTML. The web ad server can respond accordingly.

Fold: “Above the fold,” a term taken from print media for a primeviewable ad. This means an ad that is viewable as a whole as soon as theweb page arrives. You do not have to scroll (down or sideways) to seeit. Since screen resolution can affect what is immediately viewable, itis good to know whether the web site's audience tends to set theirresolution at 640 by 480 pixels or at 800 by 600 (or higher).

Gesture recognition: Gesture recognition is the ability to interpretsimple hand-written symbols such as check marks and slashes, the abilityto recognize hand signals, the ability to recognize body movements oflimbs and the ability to recognize eye blinks, and head/face movements.In 1998, Toshiba introduced a device that uses infrared light reflectedfrom a user's hand to sense its motion. Computer analysis of monocularcameras (without reflector tags that were once required) to follow tracemotions of body parts (waving arms) using Hidden Markov Models. Livedemonstrations from Microsoft Research in Silicon Valley demonstrated 9months ago at the Windows 2000 product release that computers are ableto recognize facial components and key recognizable features on facesincluding mouth lines, cheek lines, lines between the eyes, eyebrowpositions, nose and jaw directions all of which can indicate thedirection a person is facing and head nods or shaking indicated bychanges in direction of the head. A sequence of image frames can bereduces a wire frame or stick figure representation for identifiedfacial components on each frame. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,072,494 entitledMethod and apparatus for real-time gesture recognition by Nguyen whichdealt with limb gestures, pattern matching was achieved on the sequenceon a frameset by input into a statistical model that compared thereduced frameset data with recognizable gestures the motions by patternrecognition permits an operation based on the semantic meaning of thegesture to be performed by the computer.

Hit: A hit is the sending of a single file to a browser. The file typecan be an HTML file, an image, an audio file, or other. Since a singleweb page request can have delivered with it a number of individualfiles, the number of hits from a site is a not an accurate indication ofits actual number of visitors. It can be an indicator of traffic flow tothe website but his is confused by proxy and cache servers that sharefrequently viewed files at a location on the Internet.

HTML: definition from the Whatis.com website at the URLhttp://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition₁₃ Page/0,4152,214031,00.html

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the set of “markup” symbols or codesinserted in a file intended for display on a World Wide Web browser. Themarkup tells the Web browser how to display a Web page's words andimages for the user. The individual markup codes are referred to aselements (but people also refer to them as tags).

HTML is a standard recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,213331,00.html) andadhered to by the major browsers, Microsoft's Internet Explorer andNetscape's Navigator, which also provide some additional non-standardcodes. The current version of HTML is HTML 4.0. However, both InternetExplorer and Netscape implement some features differently and providenon-standard extensions. Web developers using the more advanced featuresof HTML 4 may have to design pages for both browsers and send out theappropriate version to a user. Significant Internet Explorer 4.0 tocurrent 5.5 and Netscape Navigator 4.0 and above have features in HTML 4that are sometimes described in general as cascading sheets or dynamicHTML. What is sometimes referred to as HTML 5 is an extensible form ofHTML called Extensible Hypertext Markup Language

See http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,213550,00.html.

Impression: According to the “Basic Advertising Measures,” from FAST, anad industry group, an impression is “The count of a delivered basicadvertising unit from an ad distribution point.” Impressions are howmost web advertising is sold and the cost is quoted in terms of the costper thousand impressions (CPM).

Insertion order (IO): An insertion order is a formal, printed order torun an ad campaign. Typically, the insertion order identifies thecampaign name, the web site receiving the order and the planner or buyergiving the order, the individual ads to be run (or who will providethem), the ad sizes, the campaign beginning and end dates, the CPM, thetotal cost, discounts to be applied, and reporting requirements andpossible penalties or stipulations relative to the failure to deliverthe impressions.

IP address: Seehttp://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,212381,00.html for thisdefinition, which is based on Internet Protocol Version 4. In the mostwidely installed level of the Internet Protocol (IP) today, an IPaddress is a 32-binary digit number that identifies each sender orreceiver of information that is sent in packet across the Internet. Whenyou request an HTML page or send e-mail, the Internet Protocol part ofTCP/IP includes your IP address in the message (in each of the packets)and sends it to the IP address that is obtained by looking up the domainname in the Uniform Resource Locator you requested or in the e-mailaddress you're sending a note to. At the other end, the recipient cansee the IP address of the Web page requestor or the e-mail sender andcan respond by sending another message using the IP address it received.

An IP address has two parts: the identifier of a particular network onthe Internet and an identifier of the particular device (which can be aserver or a workstation) within that network. On the Internetitself—that is, between the routers that move packets from one point toanother along the route—only the network part of the address is lookedat. The identity of the network and the device can be used to uniquelyidentify the session that is taking place without knowing exactly wherethe workstation and browser are located.

The Network Part of the IP Address: The Internet is really theinterconnection of many individual networks (sometimes referred to as anInternetwork). Therefore, the Internet Protocol (IP) is the set of rulesfor one network communicating with any other (or for broadcast messages,all other networks). Each network must know its own address on theInternet and that of any other networks with which it communicates. Tobe part of the Internet, an organization needs an Internet networknumber, which it can request from the Network Information Center (N IC).This unique network number is included in any packet sent out of thenetwork onto the Internet.

The Local or Host Part of the IP Address: In addition to the networkaddress or number, information is needed about which specific machine orhost in a network is sending or receiving a message. Therefore, the IPaddress needs both the unique network number and a host number (which isunique within the network). (The host number is sometimes called a localor machine address.) Part of the local address can identify a subnetworkor subnet address, which makes it easier for a network that is dividedinto several physical subnetworks (for examples, several different localarea networks) or to handle many devices.

IP Address Classes and Their Formats: Since networks vary in size, thereare four different address formats or classes to consider when applyingto NIC for a network number:

-   -   Class A addresses are for large networks with many devices.    -   Class B addresses are for medium-sized networks.    -   Class C addresses are for small networks (fewer than 256        devices).    -   Class D addresses are multicast addresses.

The IP address is usually expressed as four decimal numbers, eachrepresenting eight bits, separated by periods. This is sometimes knownas the dot address and, more technically, as dotted quad notation. ForClass A IP addresses, the numbers would represent“network.local.local.local”; for a Class C IP address, they wouldrepresent “network.network.network.local.” The number version of the IPaddress usually is represented by a name or series of names called thedomain name.

Static vs. dynamic IP addresses is a very important detail in the IPworld. The discussion above assumes that IP addresses are assigned on astatic basis. In fact, many IP addresses are assigned dynamically from apool. Many corporate networks and online services economize on thenumber of IP addresses they use by sharing a pool of IP addresses amonga large number of users. If you're an America Online user, for example,your IP address will vary from one logon session to the next because AOLis assigning it to you from a pool that is much smaller than AOL's 15 to20 million subscribers. The dynamically assigned IP addresses are reusedwhen another user/workstation is given a lease for the address by a DHCP(Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) that lets network administratorsmanage centrally and automate the assignment of Internet Protocol (IP)addresses in an organization's network. To keep track of the users ofthe “leased” IP addresses a network router or firewall uses networkaddress translation (NAT) to keep track of and translate inside (localarea network) address and outside (Internet) addresses and sends themessages from the outside network to the station that has been assignedthe IP address on the local area network (LAN) and vice versa.

Internet Protocol (IP): The Internet Protocol (IP) is the method orprotocol by which data is sent from one computer to another on theInternet. IP provides the routing mechanism. Each computer (known as ahost) on the Internet has at least one IP address that uniquelyidentifies it from all other computers on the Internet. When you send orreceive data (for example, an e-mail note or a Web page), the message isdivided into little chunks called packets. Each of these packetscontains both the sender's Internet address and the receiver's address.Any packet is sent first to a gateway computer that understands a smallpart of the Internet. The gateway computer reads the destination addressand forwards the packet to an adjacent gateway that in turn reads thedestination address and so forth across the Internet until one gatewayrecognizes the packet as belonging to a computer within its immediateneighborhood or domain. That gateway then forwards the packet directlyto the computer whose address is specified.

Because a message is divided into a number of packets, if necessary,each packet can be sent by a different route across the Internet.Packets can arrive in a different order than the order they were sentin. The Internet Protocol just delivers them. It is up to anotherprotocol, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to put them back inthe right order.

IP is a connectionless protocol, which means that there is noestablished connection between the end points that are communicating.Each packet that travels through the Internet is treated as anindependent unit of data without any relation to any other unit of data.(The reason the packets are put in the right order is TCP, theconnection-oriented protocol that keeps track of the packet sequence ina message.)

See http://www.edtn.com/encyclopedia/search?term=ip andhttp://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,214031,00.html, thesources for this definition. The official definitions are in InternetEngineering Task Force's Request for Comments (RFC) 791 atftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc791.txt and in IBM's Redbook, TCP/IPTutorial and Technical Overview, in print and athttp://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/gg243376.html.

(Ad) Inventory: Inventory is the total number of ad views or impressionsthat a web site has to sell over a given period of time (usually,inventory is figured by the month).

Knowledge Database: A knowledge database (composed from a collection ofobserved physical characteristics) is shown by example in U.S. Pat. No.6,104,835 to Han entitled “Automatic knowledge database generation forclassifying objects and systems therefore which discloses classifyingobjects according to a pre-defined set of primitives, or attributes, asan important tool in quantifying characteristics associated with asample object taken from a population of similar objects. In thisregard, object classification is useful where the parent population isvery large, for example, in categorizing and cataloging celestialimages, or when the population is dynamic and its characteristics changeover time, such as defects on semiconductor wafers, or magnetic disks,cataloging bacteria, and the like. Temporal or demographic shifts inobject classes are identified by sampling objects, recording theirattributes, and determining an object class appropriate to that object.In determining the object class of an object, a knowledge database(“KDB”) typically compares the characteristics of an unknown object tothe characteristics of pre-classified objects cataloged in the KDB.KDB's are generally encoded as machine-readable code in a computersystem, and the comparison is performed by a computer to automaticallyclassify the unknown object. Using the characteristic of known defectscontained in the KDB that maps characteristics and location of knowndefects, a machine observes each sample defect under a video microscopeand classifies each defect according to location and characteristic of aclass (e.g., particle, pit, scratch, or contaminant).

Media broker: Media brokers aggregate sites and sell ad spaces onmultiple sites for the convenience of advertisers and media planners andbuyers.

Media buyer: A media buyer, at an advertising agency or large company,works with a media planner to allocate the money provided for anadvertising campaign among specific print or online media (magazines,radio, TV, web sites and other media such as billboards, direct mail,email telemarketing etc.) The media buyer requests proposals andnegotiates terms and final costs and places the advertising orders.

Network Address Translation: NAT is (Network Address Translation), anIETF standard that allows an organization to present itself to theInternet with one address. NAT converts the address of each LAN nodeinto one IP address for the Internet and vice versa. It also serves as afirewall by keeping individual IP addresses hidden from the outsideworld the translation of an Internet Protocol address (IP address) usedwithin one network to a different IP address known within anothernetwork. One network is designated the inside network and the other isthe outside. Typically, a company maps its local inside networkaddresses to one or more global outside IP addresses and unmaps theglobal IP addresses on incoming packets back into local IP addresses.This helps ensure security since each outgoing or incoming request mustgo through a translation process that also offers the opportunity toqualify or authenticate the request or match it to a previous request.NAT also conserves on the number of global IP addresses that a companyneeds and it lets the company use a single IP address in itscommunication with the world.

NAT is included as part of a router (Seehttp://www.edtn.com/encyclopedia/search?term=NAT,http://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,212924,00.html) andoften a corporate firewall. (Seehttp://whatis.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,212125,00.html ) Networkadministrators create a NAT table that does the global-to-local andlocal-to-global IP address mapping. NAT can also be used in conjunctionwith policy routing. NAT can be statically defined or it can be set upto dynamically translate from and to a pool of IP addresses.

Neural network: A modeling technique based on the observed behavior ofbiological neurons and used to mimic the performance of a system. Itconsists of a set of elements that start out connected in a randompattern, and, based upon operational feedback, are molded into thepattern required to generate the required results. A neural network is asystem of circuits or programs and data structures that mimics thelearning operations of the human brain and produces an “expert” outputbased on what it has learned in a supervised or unsupervised learningparadigm in which pairs of inputs and output patterns are presented tothe network the sequences are recorded in a memory. A neural network isinitially “trained” or fed large amounts of data and rules about datarelationships. The An outer first layer of neurons receives input andlearns to categorize inputs giving a weight to each input and outputtingto a middle layer that combines multiple input layers and forwards thefurther abstracted information to an output layer. The output layer maythen be feedback to correct the weights on the first or second layer toget optimal results. The FAQ at URL:ftp://ftp.sas.com/pub/neural/FAQ.html produced by saswss@unx.sas.com(Warren S. Sarle), Cary, N.C., U.S.A is updated monthly. The basicfeature of neural networks is the self-organizing or self-optimizingfeature outlined in U.S. Pat. No. 4,325,259 to Cooper entitled “Selforganizing general pattern class separator and identifier”

Well known to the users of this technology is the ability to score orscale the quality of the pattern matching for use in making decisions.Known uses for neural net-works applications such as robotics,diagnosing, forecasting, image processing, especially handwrittencharacter and symbol recognition and pattern recognition. Some patentsare (1) in medical diagnostics for example Comanor's invention owned byChiron disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,860,917 entitled “Method andapparatus for predicting therapeutic outcomes” which uses SMILESsimilarity metric least squares for intelligent analysis of medicalrecords. (2) In profiling persons in review of insurance claims andFederal income taxes others uses include for risk of fraud in creditcard transactions, see Nestor.com Prism system and U.S. Pat. No.5,822,741 to Fischthal at Lockheed Martin Corporation entitled “NeuralNetwork/Conceptual Clustering Fraud Detection Architecture”; U.S. Pat.No. 5,819,226 to Gopinathan entitled “Fraud detection using predictivemodeling”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,650 to Hobson entitled “Detecting mobiletelephone misuse”; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,094,643 to Anderson et al.entitled “System for Detecting Counterfeit Financial Card Fraud” inwhich counterfeit financial card fraud is detected based on the premisethat the fraudulent activity will reflect itself in clustered groups ofsuspi cious transactions. A system for detecting financial card frauduses a computer database comprising financial card transaction datareported from a plurality of financial institutions. The transactionsare scored by assigning weights to individual transactions to identifysuspicious transactions. (3) in data mining, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,787425to Bigus entitled “Object-oriented data mining framework mechanism.” (4)In character recognition, see U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,043 to Gaborskientitled “Neural network with back propagation controlled through anoutput confidence measure” is for OCR optical character recognitionsystems with attention to retraining the system only when characterschange outside a predefined range, which through controlling backpropagation and adjustment of neural weight and bias values through anoutput confidence measure, smoothly, rapidly and accurately adapts itsresponse to actual changing input data (characters). Specifically, theresults of appropriate actual unknown input characters, which have beenrecognized with an output confidence measure that lies within apre-defined range, are used to adaptively re-train the network duringpattern recognition. (5) in associative memories, also referred to ascontent addressable memories, which are widely used in the field ofpattern matching and identification, expert systems and artificialintelligence see the widely used associative memory the Hopfieldartificial neural network. Hopfield artificial neural networks aredescribed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,166 to Hopfield entitled “ElectronicNetwork for Collective Decision Based on Large Number of ConnectionsBetween Signals” by which means a decision may be made with only partialset of inputs

Neural network knowledge: Neural network knowledge is acquired inlayers. Neural networks are taught by successive presentation of sets ofsignals to their primary inputs with each signal set derived from apattern belonging to a class of patterns, all having some commonfeatures or characteristics. Each time a set of signals is presented tothe primary inputs, the synaptic weights must be adapted in order forthe neural network to learn from this input. Basic knowledge is gainedby training the neurons to differentiate and build up a memory ofassociations that may be called fuzzy logic. Neural network usuallyinvolves a large number of processors operating in parallel, each withits own small sphere of knowledge and access to data in its localmemory. Networks that are more complex have deeper layers andfeed-forward systems use learned relationships stored in memory data to“feed forward” to higher layers of knowledge.

Opt-in e-mail: Opt-in e-mail is e-mail containing information oradvertising that users explicitly request (opt) to receive. Typically, aweb site invites its visitors to fill out forms identifying subject orproduct categories that interest them and about which they are willingto receive e-mail from anyone who might send it. The web site sells thenames (with explicit or implicit permission from their visitors) to acompany that specializes in collecting mailing lists that representdifferent interests. Whenever the mailing list company sells its liststo advertisers, the web site is paid a small amount for each name thatit generated for the list. Opt-in e-mail usually starts with a statementthat tells you that you have previously agreed to receive such messages.

Pay-per-click: In pay-per-click advertising, the advertiser pays acertain amount for each clickthrough to the advertiser's web site. Theamount paid per clickthrough is arranged at the time of the insertionorder.

Pay-per-lead: In pay-per-lead advertising, the advertiser pays thesource of for each sales lead generated, that is a finder's fee forevery visitor that clicked on a site and then filled out a productinterest form.

Pay-per-sale: Pay-per-sale is the customary way to pay web sites thatparticipate in affiliate programs, such as those of Amazon.com andBeyond.com where the source of the sale gets a fee for each sale.

Pay-per-view: Since this is the prevalent type of ad buying arrangementat larger web sites, this term tends to be used only when comparing thismost prevalent method with pay-per-click and other methods.

Pixel: A pixel is a “picture element” a dot on the programmable colorgraphic file or in a computer image. The physical size of a pixel willapproximate the physical size of the dot pitch (let's just call it thedot size) of the display. Sometimes a pixel will be larger than thephysical size of the screen's dot (that is, a pixel will use more thanone dot on the screen).

Proof of performance: Some advertisers want proof that the purchased adshave actually run and that clickthrough figures are accurate. There isno physical reprint or, tear sheets taken from a printed publicationprove that an ad was run. On the web, there is no proof of performancestandard. Media broker and the ad buyer usually check the web site todetermine when the ads are actually running and require weekly figuresduring a campaign. Reports are used but some look directly at thefigures, viewing the ad server or web site reporting tool via networkmanagement tools.

Psychographic characteristics: This is a term for personal interestinformation that is gathered by web sites by requesting it from users.For example, a web site could ask users to list the web sites that theyvisit most often. Advertisers could use this data to help create ademographic profile for that site.

Psychological/physiological profile: is a term unique to this invention.

Resolution: Resolution is the number of pixels (individual points ofcolor) contained on a display monitor, expressed in terms of the numberof pixels on the horizontal axis and the number on the vertical axis.The sharpness of the image on a display depends on the resolution andthe size of the monitor. Larger monitors can show more detail becausethe size will be large enough to see the small displays. The 640×480 VGA(the old standard), 800×600 XGA (the new standard for a web page XGA-2(1024×768 or 1280×1028 or more for large screens) are able to show alarge amounts of information because the pixels are being spread over alarger number of inches at a reasonable size. A 15-inch monitor at1024×768 resolution would be displaying a small banner in a very tinyarea and would require a very high number of dots per inch to show thedetails. The PDA (Portable Digital Assistant Palm Pilot device or PocketPC) has a smaller resolution of A mobile phone display is only capableof

Rich media: Rich media is advertising that contains perceptual orinteractive elements more elaborate than the usual banner ad. Today, theterm is often used for banner ads with popup menus that let the visitorselect a particular page to link to on the advertiser's site. Rich mediaads are generally more challenging to create and to serve. Some earlystudies have shown that rich media ads tend to be more effective thanordinary animated banner ads.

ROI, Return on Investment: is measure of how successful an ad orcampaign was in terms of what sales revenues were returned for the moneyinvested.

Splash page: A splash page (also known as an interstitial) is apreliminary page that runs before the regular home page of a web siteand usually promotes a particular site feature or provides advertising.A splash page is often new browser window that contains a rich mediavideo or animation that jumps to the home page after a short period oftime.

Sponsor: A Sponsor is an advertiser who has sponsored an ad and has alsohelped sponsor or sustain the web site itself. It can also mean anadvertiser that has a special relationship with the web site andsupports a special feature of a web site.

Targeting: Targeting is purchasing ad space on web sites that matchaudience and campaign objective requirements.

Transmission Control Protocol: TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is amethod or protocol used along with the Internet Protocol (I P) to senddata in the form of message units between computers over the Internet.While IP takes care of handling the actual delivery of the data, TCPtakes care of keeping track of the individual units of data (calledpacket) that a message is divided into for efficient routing through theInternet. TCP is known as a connection-oriented protocol, which meansthat TCP provides transport functions, which ensures that the totalamount of bytes sent is received correctly at the other end. UDP is analternate transport that does not guarantee delivery. UDP is widely usedfor real-time voice and video transmissions where erroneous packets arenot retransmitted. TCP is responsible for ensuring that a message isdivided into the packets that IP manages and is responsible forreassembling the packets back into the complete message at the otherend. See, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments793. DARPA 1981 Internet standards known a RFC.http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/net/odds-ends/rfc/rfc793.

Unique visitor: A unique visitor is someone with a unique address who isentering a web site for the first time that day (or some other specifiedperiod). Thus, a visitor that returns within the same day is not countedtwice. A unique visitors count lets ad people know how many differentpeople there are in the audience during the time period, but not howmuch they used the site during the period.

Unique visit: A unique visit is a count for someone who is entering aweb site from another sited for the first time on a single day or latertime even on that day or some within some other specified period. Thus,a visitor that returns to the site can be counted for each visit fromoutside the site, for example in response to banner ads leaving the website and returning later.

User session: A user session is someone with a unique address thatenters or reenters a web site each day (or some other specified period).A user session is can be determined by counting only those users thathaven't reentered the site within the past 20 minutes or a similarperiod. User sessions indicate total site activity better than “uniquevisitors” since they indicate frequency of use and can be used to countrepeat visits.

View: A view is either an ad view or a page view. Usually an ad view iswhat's meant. There can be multiple ad views per page views. Viewcounting should consider that a small percentage of users choose to turnthe graphics off (not display the images) in their browser.

Visit: A visit is a web user with a unique address entering a web siteat some page for the first time that day (or for the first time in alesser time period). The number of visits is roughly equivalent to thenumber of different people that visit a site. This term is ambiguousunless the user defines it, since it could mean a user session or itcould mean a unique visitor that day.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART

The World Wide Web is more than an information superhighway, a source ofinformation. The Web has become an attractive multimedia shopping mall.The more time a happy consumer spends at the merchandiser, the morechances to sell products to the visitor. The present invention hasobjectives that are distinguishable from presently used web mediaselection systems and web content controls that are intended to satisfycustomer viewers' expressed likes and dislikes and by paying constantattention to the selection of media programming that the viewer haschosen. According to Wexler probably the most common form of socialnavigation is information recommendation, sometimes referred to associal filtering. Shardanand, Upendra & Pattie Maes. “Social InformationFiltering: Algorithms for Automating ‘Word of Mouth’,” Proceedings ofCHI'95 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press,1995. Information, usually in the form of ratings, from other users isapplied to help the current user. This is done either by selecting oneor a few items from a large database of potentially recommendable items,or by ordering, rating or filtering information items based on pastratings data. Systems which fall into this category include: (1) theBellcore video recommender. Hill, Stead, Rosenstein & Furnas.“Recommending and Evaluating Choices in a Virtual Community of Use,”Proceedings of CHI'95 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,ACM Press, 1995; (2) the MIT Media Lab's HOMR music-recommendationsystem. Salton, Gerard. The SMART System—Experiments in AutomaticDocument Processing, Prentice Hall, 1971; (3) the Do-I-Care Agent (DICA)for Web pages, Starr, Ackerman & Pazzani. “Do-I-Care: A CollaborativeWeb Agent,” Proceedings of CHI'96 Conference on Human Factors inComputing Systems, ACM Press, 1996; and (4) the Usenet news ratingsystem GroupLens, Miller, Riedl, & Konstan. “Experiences with GroupLens:Making Usenet Useful Again,” Proceedings of the 1997 Usenix WinterTechnical Conference, January 1997. Hill and Terveen's PHOAKS (PeopleHelping One Another Know Stuff) system, Hill, Will & Loren Terveen.“Using Frequency-of-Mention in Public Conversations for SocialFiltering,” Proceedings of CSCW'96 Conference on Computer-SupportedCooperative Work, ACM Press, 1996, uses FAQs and other postings toselect URLs for recommendation.

The invention does something entirely different. BioNet method andsystem allows monitoring of physiologic and psychological signals thatindicate stress, emotion, moods or boredom in the context before a saleand help the web content provider maintain the interests and buyingmomentum of a viewer.

The use of viewer surveys and monitoring of browser activity to controlsselection of media presented on a website and used to control selectionof ads presented to viewers based on a profile of viewer interests iswell known to the website proprietors based that rely upon individuallycollected interest surveys and large scale demographic studies forgenerating increased activity that leads to sales. With multiple adviews on several banners and sidebars, it is difficult to attributebehavior to a particular ad view. At a given moment monitoring viewerattention and the immediate viewer response in real time in sync withthe views can give advertisers a better measure of viewer response.Recently the multitude of portal websites open with a membershipquestionnaire and offer incentives such as customized newsletters,product finders, price watchers, daily reminders, free electronicmailboxes, customized web pages, personalized product catalogs andaffinity programs such as discount coupons frequent viewer miles,contests, prizes raffles and giveaways to get people to come back againand again. More specifically, advertising controls used to select mediafor websites heretofore devised and utilized survey tools that are knownto consist basically of familiar expected questionnaires on preferredchoices in books music movies and other products coupled with backgrounddemographic information and “collaborative filtering or Group Lens”software for comparing surveys and collecting demographics that intendto suggest what the viewer is most likely to want based on what similarviewers have like. The statistics help the advertiser reach a targetedaudience and make the selection of the ever preset “banner ad” that isplaced on the top of many web pages. Ad panning systems are movingtoward a real time analysis of consumer groups to ads. The real-timespeed of analysis permits customization or personalization of ads to fitthe group of consumers or the individual. The ad cost per lead or costper click may be verified and rates for ads may be set based on thetargeted audience and the responsiveness of the audience. Vendors makecompetitive claims about how effective the systems are at predictionconsumer responses to future ad campaign.

Personality profile information may be useful in making guided salesbecause the response is different for different types of persons. Onlinetraining question and answers offers opportunity to collect profileinformation while a person performs online training. Answering thequestion as part of an online negotiation-training program can givepersonal insights. For example answering the Question: Choose the threemost common fears you will encounter when you are negotiating? Failure,Humiliation, Suffering, Loss, The unknown. These fears need to be dealtwith in the sales process. Information on how the viewer responds can beobtained explicitly by surveyor implicitly by observation of behaviorwithin contest. The most widely known fear used in sales is the limitedtime promotion that works on the fear of losing a good deal. “Act nowthe price will never be better!” The questionnaire is not necessarysince valuable personal information can be inferred by observingbehaviors and keeping a record of sales after presentations that work onthe limited time offer principle. The fear of loss can be ascertained bythe behavior that shows the consumer taking the bait and buying.

FIG. 2 shows alternative models that APT Applied Predictive Technologyclaims to use multiple algorithms to identify the optimal analyticalmethod to solve each predictive challenge. In comparison, APT sayscompeting approaches rely upon one and only one predictive statisticaltechnique, exposing users to its flaws when it is not the best predictorof future results. APT builds competing models and employs geneticalgorithms to choose the best approach. Modeling techniques employedinclude: neural networks, collaborative filtering(clustering/filtering), logistic regression decision trees, and linearregression. Neural networks appear to be the best method.

Significant advertising revenues are being generated by the clickthrough ads in which the browser viewer follows an ad link to anotherpage and proceeds through to a sale. Web site providers that displayedthe ad that the viewer selected and clicked-on and that eventually ledto a sale may receive pennies or larger amounts for each viewer whotraversed the link and visited an advertiser's web page. Notwithstandingthe designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have beendeveloped for the fulfillment of consumer objectives and meetingactivity monitoring requirements of ad agencies and web site contentmanagement, which makes the selections of web pages, pictures, music andspoken audio, animation, streaming video and other presentations BioNetmethod and system offers a minimally invasive means to get immediateconfirmation of the desires and dislikes of the browser viewer atseveral steps before the actual sale and permits the website contentmanagers to develop a database which contains the history of the stepstaken before the sale that is much more than a click-through recording.The database includes a physiological, psychological and emotionalsequence before the sale occurs.

The BioNet method and system is suitable for use with any website thatis able to categorize web displays according to at least three phases ofa purchase and identify the best media responses to emotional salesbarriers when indicated by electronically monitored physiological andpsychological signals are transmitted to a “ppd”physiologic/psychological database server and may be a part integral towebsite or an add-on service reached through the Internet. Thecategorization of purchase to a limited number of phases which outlinethe general track of events that occur in the time preceding a salemakes the planning of media easier by reducing the decision or choicesand reduces the computational demands of the pattern recognition of atime series of events by making “training solution” assumptions thatapply to neural networks and database clusters called emotionalfootprints by the inventors. Nonetheless, the variety of psychologicaland physiological input variables allows customization of a system tomeet individual situations based on the Escores for various personalityattributes, which are identifiable by legacy (already stored) individualprofiles, current Behavioral/Emotional—Attention Indicators responses orcandidate profiles associated with the specific product being sold or.

As is often desired during an ad campaign, website ad sponsors havescheduled for standard web content presentation and that standardmaterial can override media recommendations if desired. When theconditions for override operation are met, the website controls of thepresent invention will allow standard web content to be displayed. Whenoverride is not present particularly when the final pre sale phases arereached recommend media content with a theme that based onrecommendations of the ppd server assists the website selection of theweb page media content and theme based on recommendation coming from theppd server, that use historically confirmed psychological/psychologicalindicators

Some web site media content controllers maintain an internal database.The Macromedia Real Time Like Minds™ system is an example of one suchall-inclusive system. Frequently websites use a distributed system inwhich the three tiered system Storage in back end database, mid levelbusiness logic and Desktop browser client level display. Extended HTMLor XML is used for management of the distributed systems. MacromediaEnterprise LikeMinds™ is an example of the distributed system.

Guided selling is a new type of interactive sales system that goes onestep further to refine the computer interaction to a level thatapproaches the actions of a virtual sales assistant that interacts in ahuman conversational fashion with the web viewers. U.S. Pat. No,6,070,149 to Tavor, et al. discloses virtual sales personnel that enableusers over a network or over the WWW to interact with an interactivesales representative system for providing sales guidance. The systemoffers the user products, services, or ideas (the “products”) accordingto parameters collected from the user. The system guides the customer toretrieve the desired products. If the system does not have a productmatched to the customer requirements, preferably it will operate amechanism for suggesting alternatives that are the closest to thecustomer requirements and for suggesting alternatives that have thegreater likelihood of leading to a decision to buy or select. SASmentions the guided selling technology as applied to customer websitesand cites the need for fewer live sales support personnel.

The pattern recognizer is preferably a neural network which has gainedmuch complexity and ability to discriminate in evolution from U.S. Pat.No. 5,355,436 to Shin and Sridhar describes a “Single layer neuralnetwork system for performing separable and non-linearly separablelogical operations using complex weights.” Shin used a single neuronnetwork, which may be configured in a single layer is known as aperceptron known by the MP acronym for McCulloch Pitts model of braininterconnected neurons. In general, a perceptron accepts multipleinputs, multiplies each by a weight, sums the weighted inputs, subtractsa threshold, and limits the resulting signal, such as by passing itthrough a hard limiting nonlinearity. A perception is described in W.McCulloch and W. Pitts, “A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent inNervous Activity,” Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, Vol. 5, pp.115-133, 1943. Further development beyond to a difference type or non-MPneuron cells was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,359,700 to Seligson ofIntel entitled “Neural network incorporating difference neurons.” Anartificial neural network incorporating difference type, non-MP(McCullough-Pitts) neuron cells and a method and apparatus for trainingthis network. And finally, Cooper et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,094discloses a parallel multi unit adaptive nonlinear class separator andidentifier. It is described as a system for separating and identifyingclasses of patterns or events which are not necessarily linearlyseparable. During a training process of the system, new prototypes arecreated when prior stored prototypes fail to properly classify an inputpattern, and previously stored prototypes are modified when an inputpattern falls within the sphere of influence of a prototype associatedwith a different class than the input pattern. The particular neuralnetwork that is used is not important. Of critical importance is theability of the system to learn and be self correcting. The physiologicBiosignals heart rate, blood pressure skin resistance and skintemperature as well as gestures as mood indicators are criticalnonverbal signals which have no immediate action but rather uponrecognition of a pattern of subsequent actions may be used as apredictive indicator for future behavior. Analysis of past behaviors andaccompanying Biosignal and gesture recognition events makes the BioNetsystem respond more quickly than inference based systems that must waitfor a clickthrough type event to begin to learn

The present invention operates or may operate independently from otherwebsite content monitoring and control systems seen in the prior art.Alternatively, it may be embedded into a real-time system that does notrequire a distributed set of servers for logic and database storagefunctions.

One media content controlling method being electronic monitoring ofbrowser activity sensing of content viewed and duration of display andbuyer behavior, transitions to next viewed media pages transmittingviewer information to a central database, comparing the viewer data withother similar viewers and deriving a suggested media presentations basedupon interests expressed by other viewers that have similarcharacteristics. This is the so called collaborative filtering alsodescribed in NetConnections patent and Miller's Group lens technology

Electronic transmission of media is driven from a website or contentcontrolled ad servers that are linked to multiple websites by small“one-pixel” files in web pages that send a web page with an embedded“web bug” that makes a call out to the ad server to send the informationto the browsers

Present computer systems include display input devices networkconnections and do not have physiologic input sensors that transmit theBioData to the workstation or computer which forwards pertinentinformation to the network.

When a viewer is on a website monitoring browser activity especially thesuccessful click through activity that leads to sales includes recordingnumbers of views of a particular page, time spent on the page,progression to other pages on the site and eventually sales are criticalto the operation of the database and selection of media by therecommendation system.

A first standard browser communication filtering method for recommendingbeing such that the source of the click is tracked to determine thereferral site from which the user browser originated the click andarrived at the ad website. This is the transversal or web link filteringmethod collects clickthrough information, compares successful sales withthe source of the buyers, and in affiliate programs pays referring sitesthat result in sales.

A second browser communication filtering method being such thatfiltering and clustering is used improved upon to minimize the effortneeded to make the group analysis. The so called filtering andclustering method is known as collaborative filtering when multipleusers and websites are used to collect information about purchases andrequests so that a demographic group of consumers independent of

A third browser communication filtering method being such a neuralnetwork is employed in a context of a first ad viewing to learn to thecharacterize the behavior of an individual consumer and establishmembership of the individual in groups of like consumers and in a secondcontext of later viewing to use the characterization to select mediacontent and thematic approach for later views by the same consumer andgroup members and to characterize the behavior of that individual andgroup members at second context views and in other contexts.

Newer web site management tools and media control systems use. Apossible fourth method in this invention both the first and secondmethods are combined in one filter. This is functional where only oneweb server is intended to use the correlated data for user preferencesand choice of preferred media. Preferred theme and media choice is fromthe vendor and consumer is the theme and choice that leads mostconsistently to a sale of goods or acquisition of information orservices.

A fifth method of modification of a website content manager employs adecision tree or logistic model for selection of media based onstatistic like and dislikes based on average Bayesian.

The preferred embodiment for the system is a self-correcting learningsystem one of several multilayer a neural network implementations whichlearn individual preferences/recommendations and grouppreferences/recommendations are employed. A hierarchy of choices forrecommendations based on individuals, groups and media providers. Whatis unique to the system is the ability of the web content provider tooverride the recommendations and use a “campaign approach” or force theuse of standard media and theme choices and force the selection of adsshown to viewers to evaluate specific new materials. This overridepermits testing of media on viewers and collection of data for diverseindividuals and groups of individual where new media has been developed.This also can be used for forced repetition saturation campaigns.Biosignal responses, click through and buying responses are observed andthe system learns and evaluates the responses even before theclickthrough has been completed.

FIG. 10 shows the hierarchy of choices for recommendation that requiresa threshold for both individual and group recommendations. An individualmeasure of confidence in the individual recommendation based onindividual preferences is desired to be above an individual confidencethreshold. If the individual measure confidence is not sufficient totrust the recommendation, the website content provider may use the groupdata to determine a group recommendation instead of the individualrecommendation. A group measure of confidence in the grouprecommendations based on group preferences is desired to be above agroup confidence threshold. If the group measure of recommendation isnot sufficient to trust the group recommendation or if the default isrequired by the advertiser, the default content and theme will be used.

PRINCIPLE OF THE INVENTION

Internet browsers are viewed by consumers and are considered anexcellent medium for ads and making “on-line” sales. The problem thatconsumer viewers often browse and select products but abandon the onlineshopping cart before a sale is completed.

The inventors' experience that more customers achieve a satisfactoryresult is a closed sale for the salesperson in a situation where a livesalesperson is able to answer customer questions and understand andrespond to the unspoken objections shown by the customers body language,gestures, eye contact and tone of voice that are reliable indicators ifthe potential buyer has problems with the sale. BioNet method, systemand personalized web content manager is responsive to browser viewers'psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiologic stressindicators that are available through the use ofpsychological/physiological monitoring devices attached to the browserequipment, thus preserving website's efficient operation. Preservationof buying momentum and continued browsing with minimal delays areprimary concerns addressed by the invention.

While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives andrequirements, the aforementioned patents do not disclose a new BioNetmethod, system and personalized web content manager that immediatelyresponds to real time indications of stress or interest of the websiteviewer. The inventive device includes Biosignal sensors, hardware forobtaining physiologic information, and gesture recognition, means forcomputer analysis of the Biosignals, including taking a baseline measurebefore media is presented and recording perturbations from baseline,means for sending the information from a client web browser to acomputer network that keeps a history of viewer interactions with thewebsite including those actions which preceded earlier sales forpurposes of creating a knowledgebase of predictable consumer behaviors.

In these respects, the BioNet method, system and personalized webcontent manager responsive to browser viewers' psychologicalpreferences, behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicatorsaccording to the present invention substantially departs from theconventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doingprovides a method and apparatus primarily developed for receivingimmediate consumer feedback for the purpose of selectively advisingwebsites on what media will meet the content and themes desired by theconsumer. Immediate feedback is obtained by using the stress ordiscomfort indicated through Biosignals made available by selectedBiosignal sensors and combined with database information that includesthe context of the viewing situation, the psychological profile of theviewer, and particularly includes the recognizable pathway that includessteps at least the last three steps before a sale is recorded. Basedupon the context and viewer history website content provider is givensuggestions for presentations that satisfy viewers and achieve maximumsales efficiency that will lead to quicker sales and fewer abandonedvisits.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In view of the foregoing disadvantages inherent in the known types ofwebsite media content and theme controls used to provide a content to aweb viewer the present browser viewer's physiologic/psychologicalinformation to a website content provider so that the information can betransmitted to browser viewers now present in the prior art, the presentinvention provides a new BioNet method, system and personalized webcontent manager responsive to browser viewers' psychologicalpreferences, behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicatorsconstruction wherein the same can be utilized for selectively presentingmedia choices to the consumer with aims to reach a maximum satisfactionof viewer desires without a loss of momentum toward a with sale withminimum time consumption by the user and minimum bandwidth consumptionby the media selected.

The general purpose of the present invention, which will be describedsubsequently in greater detail, is to provide a new BioNet method,system and personalized web content manager responsive to browserviewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiologicstress indicators apparatus and method which has many of the advantagesof the present personalized web content managers and includes many novelfeatures that result in a new BioNet method, system and personalized webcontent manager responsive to browser viewers' psychologicalpreferences, behavioral responses and physiologic stress indicatorswhich is not anticipated, rendered obvious, suggested, or even impliedby any of the prior art portals website controls, website ad monitoringsystems controls used to control and suggest media content supplied to abrowser viewer, either alone or in any combination thereof.

To attain this, the present invention generally comprises a web browserconnected to a network, browser being software running on a digitalcomputer input output devices capable of text display, optionally soundand multimedia display, and including the standard button keyboard ormouse, specialized physiological input accessories acquire signals;further comprising a database for storing user preferences,psychological data and physiological data, an analysis component foridentifying patterns of activities for individuals and groups ofindividuals using the browser, and a recommending component forrecommending to a web content provider the media type and message themesto be viewed by the browser user.

There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more importantfeatures of the invention in order that the detailed description thereofthat follows may be better understood, and in order that the presentcontribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additionalfeatures of the invention that will be described hereinafter and whichwill form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.

In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of theinvention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is notlimited in its application to the details of construction and to thearrangements of the components set forth in the following description orillustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of otherembodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Inaddition, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminologyemployed herein are for the purpose of description and should not beregarded as limiting.

As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception,upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basisfor the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carryingout the several purposes of the present invention. It is important,therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalentconstructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope ofthe present invention.

Further, the purpose of the foregoing abstract is to enable the PTO andthe public generally, and especially the scientists, engineers andsoftware practitioners in the art who are not familiar with patent orlegal terms or phraseology, to determine quickly from a cursoryinspection the essence of the technical disclosure of the application.The abstract is neither intended to restrictively define the inventionof the application, which is measured by the claims, nor is the abstractintended to limit the scope of the invention in any way.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a newBioNet method, system and personalized web content manager responsive tobrowser viewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses andphysiologic stress indicators which is not anticipated, renderedobvious, suggested, or even implied by any of the prior art websitecontent controls used to control web pages, rich multimedia and ads to aconsumer web browser, either alone or in any combination thereof forviewing on any of new wireless media browsers including PDA's (personaldigital assistants PALM OS or Pocket PC), cell phones, pagers that aresoon to be available with Bluetooth, G3, and the WAP WirelessApplication Protocol.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a new BioNetmethod, system and personalized web content manager responsive tobrowser viewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses andphysiologic stress indicators which may be easily and efficientlymanufactured and marketed.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a new BioNetmethod, system and personalized web content manager responsive tobrowser viewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses andphysiologic stress indicators which is of a flexible and reliablearchitecture scalable for use on systems with web browsers on variouspersonal computers and Internet appliances that use operating MicrosoftWindows, Linux, OS/2, PALM OS, Windows CE severed by web servers thatoperate on a variety of UNIX, Windows NT, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, AppleMacintosh OS n-X others on various server platforms .

An even further object of the present invention is to provide a newpersonalized web content manager responsive to browser viewers'psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiologic stressindicators which is susceptible of a low cost of programming anddistribution with regard to both media and labor, and which accordinglyis then susceptible of low prices of sale to the advertisers and mediaproviders, thereby making such personalized web content managerresponsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences, behavioralresponses and physiologic stress indicators economically available tothe buying public.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a new BioNetmethod, system and personal web content manager responsive to behavioralresponses and physiologic stress indicators which provides in theapparatuses and methods of the prior art some of the advantages thereof,while simultaneously overcoming some of the delayed response of existingrecommendation systems that must wait for explicit action via user clickor input before deciding on further recommendations and disadvantagesnormally associated therewith.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a new BioNetmethod, system and personalized web content manager responsive tobrowser viewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses andphysiologic stress indicators for selectively recommending to the webcontent provider the theme to be pursued on the website ad mediapresentations based on signal received telling the consumer responses toads before behavioral actions indicate the consumer's choice.

Still yet another object of the present invention is to provide a newBioNet method, system and personalized web content manager responsive tobrowser viewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses andphysiologic stress indicators that is self correcting, in response tochanges of individual responses. Where suggested media content andthemes do not match the desired result showing a greater inclinationtoward a sale according to legacy history rules proposed for anindividual, the system can fall back from individual profile matching togroup profile matching or to default campaign or product profilematching.

Even still another object of the present invention is to provide a newBioNet method, system and personalized web content manager responsive tobrowser viewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses andphysiologic stress indicators is useable as an add on module to existingweb site media selection controls.

These together with other objects of the invention, along with thevarious features of novelty that characterize the invention, are pointedout with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part ofthis disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, itsoperating advantages and the specific objects attained by its uses,reference should be had to the accompanying drawings and descriptivematter in which there are illustrated preferred embodiments of theinvention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention, as well as the following detailed description ofpreferred embodiments, will be better understood and objects other thanthose set forth above will become apparent when consideration is givento the following detailed description thereof. Such description makesreference to the annexed drawings that are included by way of example,and not by way of limitation with regard to the claimed invention.

FIG. 1 generally illustrates the cycle of operation of the presentinvention.

FIG. 2 is a prior art evaluation chart by APT Applied PredictiveTechnology Chart that shows a comparison of effectiveness of variousmodels used to predict content that applies to an apparel website.http://www.predictivetechnologies.com/images/right_tool.gif

FIG. 3 is a prior art illustration FIG. 3 of a client server exchangesession involving the access control and monitoring method of theLevergood U.S. Pat. No. 5,708,780.

FIG. 3A is an illustration of a client server exchange session involvingthe access control and monitoring method using a session identifierpsychological physiological indicator transmitted over the network.

FIG. 3B is an example of an apparel website using Microsoft ActiveServer Page implementation of the web server and browser viewer thatuses database elements

FIG. 3C is an online slide viewer presentation by SAS that outlines theadvantages of Managing Customer Relationships is the key to Win-WinE-commerce.

FIG. 3D is another slide viewer presentation by SAS that illustrates theadvantages of guided selling for more complex sales that could otherwiserequire sales staff actions to support the viewer customer.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of Alkons' Dynamically-Stable Associative LearningNeural Network System which also may be used in the BioNet System andpersonalized web content manager.

FIG. 4A is a prior art multilevel neural network block diagram of theneural network in U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,093 to Cooper, a Parallel,multi-unit, adaptive, nonlinear pattern class separator and identifier.

FIG. 4B is a prior art multilevel neural network block diagram of theNestor Multilevel Neural Network in U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,093 to O'Reilly.

FIG. 5 is a schematic block diagram of the BioNet System andpersonalized web content manager responsive to browser viewers'psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiological stressindicators of the present invention with a three tier setup.

FIG. 6 is a diagram of the Likeminds™ Personalization Architecture whichshows personalization occurring apart from the web content manager.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a computer system on which a browser or webserver may operate, such as a workstation, personal computer, PalmPilot, Pocket PC, wireless browser or other processing apparatus inwhich the client 50 or server 150 may be operative.

FIG. 8 is an example consumer database that is a flat representation ofmultidimensional databases where each column in an OLAP onlineanalytical processing database joins several databases A demographic, Bgeneral, C biosignals, D Medical, E credit score, F psychocognitive(survey), G Buying history (BuyScore), H cookie data and I behavioralemotional states.

FIG. 8A is a block diagram of computer systems shown in PRIOR ART U.S.Pat. No. 5,784,608.

FIG. 9 is a modified a schematic diagram of the network dataflow to andfrom Web server 52, Client and Database and Financial Credit Debitserver of the present invention using an website interposed between theBDS Buy Data ppd database (Physiologic/ Psychological Server databaseswhere BuyScore E-Score and kept and suggestions are sent Web server.

FIG. 10 is a scenario of a web site visit illustrated by a pathwaydiagram of page views prompts and activities as two different visitorsJohn and Joe traverse web site pages, which are selected based onpersonal preferences and responses of the consumers.

FIG. 11 is network dataflow diagram to and from Web server client,database and financial credit debit server for the BioNet method andpersonalized web content manager responsive to browser viewers'psychological preferences, behavioral responses and physiological stressindicators.

FIG. 12 is a Flow diagram illustration of combination of legacy ratingand BioRating shown by parallel processing and comparison of predictedresults in compound neural networks. Predictions based on explicit datainput, behavior, context and legacy data inputs are compared withpredictions based on BioData Behavior and context as employed in aBioNet system and personalized web content manager responsive to browserviewers' psychological preferences, behavioral responses andphysiological stress indicators as processed without and with BioDatafor purposes of suggesting web content and style and updating legacydata preferences and BioData profiles.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart that shows the logic of selection of therecommendations ad choice using a selection method based override to adefault ad campaign for testing T3, based on individual profilerecommendation based on individual prediction data above a thresholdconfidence level T5, or based on group profile recommendation based ongroup history and prediction data above a group threshold T7 and defaultad campaign where confidence does not meet either individual or groupthreshold levels at tested in steps T2 and T6 and default must be usedT8.

FIG. 14 shows a simplified wireless computer Internet connection for theFIG. 19 embodiment.

FIG. 15 is a simplified electronic circuit for connection of theelectrodes to an instrumentation amplifier for measurement ofbiopotentials embodied in Bio-Phone. Bio-Phone embodies aninstrumentation amplifier and analog to digital converter/buffer/senderthat sends serial data to its own computer or external computer/worldwide web wirelessly.

FIG. 16 is a simplified electronic circuit for connection of theelectrodes to an instrumentation amplifier for measurement of skinimpedances embodied in Bio-Phone. A simplified electrical diagram of GSRmonitor which injects current on electrodes connected between a person'sear including the pinna and ear canal and measures voltage in aninstrumentation amplifier and analog to digital converter/buffer/senderthat sends serial data wirelessly.

FIG. 17 shows a simplified Bio-Phone apparatus with self containedcomputer gathering, analyzing and utilizing data with reciprocal userinteraction without Internet connection.

FIG. 18 shows a simplified Bio-Phone apparatus that is also its own selfcontained computer wirelessly connecting to the World Wide Web.

FIG. 19 shows an embodiment of the invention that utilizes a Bio-Phoneas user's interface.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

With reference now to the drawings, and in particular to FIGS. 1 through19 thereof, a new BioNet System and personalized web content managerresponsive to browser viewers' psychological preferences, behavioralresponses and physiological stress indicators embodying the principlesand concepts of the present invention and generally designated by thereference numeral 10 will be described.

More specifically, it will be noted that the workstation in FIG. 3 ofU.S. Pat. No. 5,784,608 herein incorporated as FIG. 7 included indrawings is a computer system, such as a workstation, personal computeror other processing apparatus in which the client 50 operates a browser200 or a server 150 may be operative is illustrated in FIG. 8 with abrowser, various biosensors and a voice stress analyzer. In a similarmanner a web appliance browser, two way email device, minibrowserdevices using WAP, wireless application protocol, new 3G wirelessstandard, or NTT DoCoMo Japanese standard may be a platform for abrowser and biosensors and perhaps a voice stress analyzer. Aworkstation in which one implementation of the present invention may bepracticed includes system 300, which comprises a bus or othercommunication means 301 for communicating information, and a processingmeans 302 coupled with bus 301 for processing information. System 300further comprises a random access memory (RAM) or other volatile storagedevice 304 (referred to as main memory), coupled to bus 301 for storinginformation and instructions to be executed by processor 302. Arrowssuch as 67 represent the system bus architecture of computer system 1.However, the bus is illustrative of any interconnection scheme servingto link the subsystems. For example, a local bus could be utilized toconnect the central processor to the system memory and the displayadapter. A wireless interconnection scheme could link processor displayadapter and memory. Main memory 304 also may be used for storingtemporary variables or other intermediate information during executionof instructions by processor 302. System 300 also comprises a read onlymemory (ROM) and/or other static storage device 306 coupled to bus 301for storing static information and instructions for processor 302, and adata storage device 307 such as a magnetic disk or optical disk and itscorresponding disk drive both fixed and removable. Data storage device307 is coupled to bus 301 for storing information and instructions. Thismay be used for storage of the various files to be described hereincluding profiles, indices, temporary cached web information, topics,and files.

System 300 may further be coupled to a display device 321, such as acathode ray tube (CRT) or liquid crystal display (LCD) or a visor, whichis coupled to bus 301, for displaying information to a computer user.Such a display 321 may further be coupled to bus 301 via a frame buffer310, which information such as a single or multiple frames or images fordisplay upon display device 321. An alphanumeric input device 331,including alphanumeric and other keys, may also be coupled to bus 301for communicating information and command selections to processor 302.An additional user input device is cursor control 332, such as a mouse,a push-pointer, a trackball, stylus, or cursor direction keys, coupledto bus 301 for communicating direction information and commandselections to processor 302, and for controlling cursor movement ondisplay 321.

Note, also, that any or all of the components of system 300 andassociated hardware may be used in various embodiments; however, it canbe appreciated that any configuration of the system may be used forvarious purposes according to the particular implementation. Bio Remotecontrol 340, BioPhone wireless 341, and 2way BioPager 342 and BioPalmPocket PC are self contained wireless devices include within a system ona chip or miniature system with the RAM ROM CPU and Mass storage as wellas BioData sensors and device controls and minibrowser displays andsometimes audio speakers or headphones.

In one embodiment, system 300 is one of the Sun Microsystems® brandfamily of workstations such as the SPARCstation brand workstationmanufactured by Sun Microsystems® of Mountain View, Calif. Processor 302may be one of the SPARC brand microprocessors manufactured by SunMicrosystems®, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif. Note that the followingdiscussion of various embodiments discussed herein will referspecifically to a series of routines which are generated in a high-levelprogramming language (e.g., the PERL, JAVA, PYTHON, SMALLTALKinterpretive and scripting languages) which is interpreted and/orexecuted in system 300 at run-time. These further are used inconjunction with the browser and server software available from NCSA,MOSAIC NETACAPE MICROSOFT and other SPYGLASS licenses including thespecification of the appearance of displays in HTML. One skilled in theart appreciates that the following methods and apparatus may beimplemented in special purpose hardware devices, such as discrete logicdevices, large scale integrated circuits (LSI's), application-specificintegrated circuits (ASIC's), or other specialized hardware. Otherprogramming languages, C, BasicC, C ++ and other Operating systems suchas Unix, Posix, and variations of Linux platforms may be utilized.

Another embodiment Web Server platform comprises an IBM RISC System/6000computer running the AIX (Advanced Interactive Executive) OperatingSystem and a Web server program, such as Netscape Enterprise ServerVersion 2.0, that supports interface extensions. The platform alsoincludes a graphical user interface (GUI) for management andadministration. The various models of the RISC-based computers aredescribed in many publications of the IBM Corporation, for example, RISCSystem 6000, 7013 and 7016 POWERstation and POWERserver. While the aboveplatform is useful, any other suitable hardware/operating system/Webserver combinations may be used. Accordingly, the web server descriptionhere has equal application to apparatus having similar components andfunctions.

Biosignal processing could occur at a central location if signals couldbe transmitted and received reliably at a central computer. One problemfor delivery of Biosignals is the availability of broadband service toconsumers' homes. Cable modems and DSL are expected to become morepopular in coming years. More bandwidth in the last mile to theconsumer's home would permit centralized monitoring of Biosignals thatare transmitted in packets to a central server instead of being analyzedat the browser system. August, 2000 “Emarketer” reported second quartergrowth in U.S. DSL was at 59%, according to TeleChoice. The number oflines in service jumped 754,770 to 1.2 million and predicted there werelikely to be 10 million DSL and cable TV connections in the U.S. in thenext three or four years.

In use according to the present invention, multiplayer neural networksare used to determine the patterns of inputs that are most likely tolead up to a sale. The patterns of inputs are referred to as abehavioral emotional footprint that comprises at least three stepsleading up to a sale. U.S. Pat. No. 4,897,811 by Scofield et al.describes an N-Dimensional Coulomb Neural Network Which Provides ForCumulative Learning of Internal Representations. For multiplayer neuralnetworks, refer to U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,742 by Alkon—Dynamically-StableAssociative Learning Neural Network System and U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,469also by Alkon—Neural Network With Weight Adjustment Based On PriorHistory Of Input Signals. Alkon says in U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,469 inaccordance with the present invention, the input presented to a basicneural network architectural unit comprises a first input signalcomprising a set of conditioned stimuli (CS), and a second input (UCS)signal comprising an unconditioned stimulus. In some embodiments of theinvention, CS arises from a historical pattern to be classified and UCSrepresents a classification category. Conceptually, note original patentdrawing FIG. 4 c shown in drawing FIG. 4 shows the flow-throughconnections are analogues of pathways for unconditioned stimuli (UCS),and the collateral connections are analogues of pathways for conditionedstimuli (CS). The neural networks learn to combine and differentiate ina manner similar to the human brain. Sets of signals representing theexemplary desired (CS) input patterns are successively applied to theprimary inputs and propagate through the neural network to the output.The differences between the actual and desired output vales, determinedby the external teacher, are calculated to arrive at an error signalthat is employed, typically with a nonlinear algorithm, throughout thenetwork to adjust synaptic weights. The synaptic weights are used toadjust the effective value of the various neuron inputs to permit theneural model to be used to predict the behavior of a system that haslearned from past behavior. Neural networks are useful for patternrecognition that is associative or content-addressable memory forproducing a class exemplar form an input pattern as described by U.S.Pat. No. 5,359,700 Seligson Neural network incorporating differenceneurons which actually uses a difference neuron. This process isrepeated in a recurring manner and typically requires a large number ofiterations to reduce errors appearing at the primary outputs to anacceptable level. This method is referred to as the back-propagationmethod.

One other well known non-iterative method of using a neural networkemploys Gaussian probability method is discussed by Minot in U.S. Pat.No. 5,568,591 which disclosed the use of multiple multilayer perceptrons(‘MLPs’) in a neural network which classifies data vectors using amethod that utilizes comparison of differences between authenticspecimen signatures known to be from a specific person and unknownsignatures not known to be from the same person. Minot method is suitedfor comparisons where a small number of sample specimens are available.The adaptively trained system employed synaptic coefficients or weightsdetermined by training on the differences between training specimens ofa known authentic class, the network being adapted to fit the number ofspecimens to the classes. A network as trained is capable of verifyingsignatures by operating rapidly and repeatably using the synapticweights retrievable from a stored database. The connection weights forinput neurons were determined by comparison of input layer neurons andcorrection neurons calculating a Bayesian and by comprising internallayer neurons and correction neurons and adjusting weights associatedtherewith. The input layer quadratic neurons 3, internal layerhyperellipsoidal neurons 4 and output layer 5 which gives theprobability that signature is in either class 1 (valid). It is notnecessary in the case of signature comparison to use a second class ofknown invalid signatures for comparisons, that being difficult unlesssamples of invalid signatures are used for training. The input neurons 3are inter connected with correction neurons 6 and internal layer neurons7 which are set to −1 compared to weighted inputs for purposes offinding optimal weights Statistical calculation of mathematicalrelationship of G (covariance matrices of normal distribution of ksamples are the k neighbors) and m (centroids of the distributions).Complexity increases as each new difference requires a new internallayer neuron and each new class requires a new output neuron

In the present invention, the BioNet Method And Personalized Web ContentManager Responsive To Browser Viewers' Psychological Preferences,Behavioral Responses And Physiological Stress Indicators, after trainingis completed and the neural network controls a network computer systemof computer browsers, a trained control program can then combine themultiple inputs make a decision to instruct the network how to behave(what to deliver to the browser) in response to inputs from a browseruser who is interacting with the network with or without physiologicinput data.

In some cases, the neural network can initiate activity on its ownwithout realtime input. For example, when a known set of legacy data(psychological characteristics) is associated with a particular product.Inputting the known set of characteristics can be used to determinemultiple emotional footprints at several possible states along theprogression shown by example in FIG. 8. With knowledge of the emotionalfootprints, the default or standard campaign can be used in cases wherephysiologic inputs are not available.

FIG. 7 shows a representative database listing of input signals andseveral psychological and emotional categories that are clusteredsubsets of signals is that may be accumulated as a cluster score for acharacteristic subset of viewer with recorded activities or surveyquestions that put he browsers viewer into a class describable asassertive, interactive, fearful, greedy, strong locus of internalcontrol (I do it may way”). Thus in accordance with the presentinvention, the neural network combines characteristics of browser usersessions and legacy data, and physiologic signals to recommend ads mediaand content themes to able shown to viewer. The weighed outputs calledEscores are the equivalent to a score for conditions at that areevaluated in terms of leading a sale.

To reach a minimum core of functionality and to make a simplerexplanation, the context of the sale has been divided into three basiccategories of pre-purchase condition, the first state being the entranceor first view of a web page and the beginning of the informationacquisition, the second state being information gathering up to andafter product is selected, and the third being the state after pricingand negotiation of details is completed but before a sale is completed.Knowledge Base creates behavioral emotional footprint that records atleast three actions that proceed to a sale. There are many pathways to asale as is illustrated in tree diagram or footprint diagram in FIG. 10.

The knowledge base is created by forming statistically large groups ofpeople, where each group exhibits the same psychological orphysiological characteristic. A larger superset of people is dividedinto these psychologically or physiologically homogeneous groups byconducting a psychological or physiological assessment, respectively, ofthe superset.

As will become apparent from the description below, the presentinvention may be adapted to use any website configuration, Forconvenience, much of the description below concernspsychological/psychological characteristics, although those skilled inthe art will recognize that the invention may easily be adapted tomeasure responses after the database has been created using Biosensorsfor acquiring psychological/physiological signals have been removed orthe browser is accessed from a location that is not equipped with thenecessary equipment.

In the classical null hypothesis test used in “lie detector” analysis ofstress a comparison of a normal response at a reference condition and aresponse known to be made under a condition of falsehood. Regardless ofthe test employed, formation of the knowledge base requires two basicsteps. First, psychologically homogeneous groups are formed based upon apsychological assessment, similar consumers are grouped together.Second, the physiologic and parameters most closely associated with eachgroup are determined. To perform this step, each viewer (“referencesubject”) in each group responds to ad impressions and has physiologicsignals monitored and if present speaks into the microphone of a voicestress analyzer, is observed by the gesture recognition device orphysiologic stress monitor. Each viewer's physiologic signals and speechis then parameterized. The process for parameterizing both the referencesubjects' speech to create the knowledge base, and the test subject'sspeech for the later pattern comparison are illustrated in FIG. 3 ofU.S. Pat. No. 6,006,188, issued to Bogdashevsky reproduced here as Theprocess for parameterizing the reference subjects physiologic signalsGSR in pending “BioMouse” patent application serial number and in theattached figure from the BioMouse application.

None of the earlier patents provides a means to working without priorknowledge a priori collection of data on a new viewer or subject. Werecognize that ad servers and web page authors have typical viewerdemographic data, and preset static data or personally customizedpreferred or a preset ad campaign, a program a planned scheme ofimpressions that is to be shown to every viewer. Physiologic responsesand voice signals are acquired in response to impressions and aknowledge base is created.

The prior art U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,188 issued to Bogdashevsky describes aspeech-based system for assessing the psychological, physiological, orother characteristics of a test subject. The system included a knowledgebase that stores one or more speech models based on a characteristicobtained from a group of reference subjects. Signal processing circuitrycompared the test speech parameters of a test subject with the speechmodels. In one embodiment, each speech model is represented by astatistical time-ordered series of frequency representations of thespeech of the reference subjects. The speech model is independent of apriori knowledge of style parameters associated with the voice orspeech. The system included speech parameterization circuitry forgenerating the test parameters in response to the test subject's speech.The speech parameterization circuitry included speech acquisitioncircuitry, output circuitry for outputting at least one indicator of acharacteristic in response to the comparison performed by the signalprocessing circuitry. The characteristic may be time-varying, in whichcase the output circuitry outputs the characteristic in a time-varyingmanner. The speech characteristics are compared with the Jungiancharacteristics using the so Called Brigs Myers compatibility profile.

The array of BioNet inputs is H, Ps, E, B, C, Ph and G as shown isfigure Table 1. Since the system is learning all signals is done realtime these can change. However the history H, Ps psychological, Eemotional, and C cognitive aspects are reached through collection ofdata made available on a legacy database and will require some stabilityfor reliability when used for estimation purposes but allow for changeas new experiences and routes are charted.

Indicator sources include H for individual history, Ps for psychologicalcompatibility, B for behavioral “motivators,” and E for emotionalmotivators C is for Cognitive G is for gesture recognition, that arecombined as a weighted collection of factors called the Escore. Escoreis used to indicate the affinity of a viewer for materials that havebeen shown and can be an indication of the likelihood of making an orderfor material or purchasing goods software (computer programs,photographs greeting cards, literature, or reading materials), Hindividual history included at website, previous web pages viewed linksource, number of times viewed, number of links or layers entered, whereon hierarchies present context (state 1 introductory viewing 2information gathering or 3 end stage loading shopping basket) in thepre-buying stages), past purchases made, and stated viewer preferencespersonal profiles or commonly assigned profiles built using demographicsof like consumers of the particular product if no profile is available.

Ps psychological compatibility indexes Myers-Briggs Jungian charactertypes. Character types are chosen from combinations of four sets ofopposite character constructs: E-I (extrovert-introvert), S-N(sensoric-intuitive), T-F (thoughtful-feeling), J-P (decisionmaker-plagued).

In category B, behavioral “motivators” are baseline customers for webpage authors, membership in knowledge base “like groups,” portalmembership surveys and past activity history. In category E, emotionalmotivators one may use a checklist from Mazlow's hierarchy of needs suchas Security vs Fear, anxiety and loss; self confidence vs doubt, trustin others, Faith congruence with values ideals or identity with personsor points of view, greed, envy, guilt, loyalty or personal involvement:affinity and ownership versus isolation and keeping at a distance,aggressive/assertive and passive/interactive styles and variouspermutations of the above.

Further pattern recognition may be optimized after physiologic signalsthat indicate anger or fear may trigger a review of historical data toidentify the specific types of anger and fear which should berecognized, categorized and used for prompting the appropriate theme andcontent. Physical signs of anger include increased hear rate and bloodpressure. Trembling speaking voice and poor posture are indicators offear. The most common types of fear found in negotiations fear offailure, loss and the unknown and lesser fears of humiliation andsuffering. The context of the situation will be a cue that indicates thekind of fear and processing the cue will allow the appropriate webcontent prompt to be recommended and used as hereinafter described withreference to FIG. 10.

C for cognitive baseline customer demographic is derived from individuallegacy data, web page collaborative filtered demographics (most userswho view this page have similar opinion surveys, past activity historyand legacy data), or simply what is expected by the ad campaign managerfor all consumers who reach the page. cognitive baseline customer datais an approximation or prediction of what the consumer thinks she or heis going. This includes locus of control that is who is leading whom andwho is planning the next move among other factors.

Ph is for physiologic signals, EEG electro encephalogram (ranging fromsimple band pass filtered power density correlations) and blinkdetection the greater the number of blinks per minute the higher theanxiety, sophisticated analysis of ERP (evoked response potentials)toindicate attention or discomfort, GSR galvanic skin resistance (thatindicates sweaty palms), skin temperature, pupil dilation, voice stress(changes in spectrum of speech), respiration rate by thermistor orhotwire anemometer flow sensor or trans-thoracic (across the chest orarm to arm) impedance, hear rate by blood pulse detection via infrareddiode or EKG electrocardiogram.

G is for gesture recognition accomplished by computer analyses of videoinputs. The position of the face as recognized by analysis of processedvideo signals indicates an upbeat or downbeat attitude. The count ofblinks per minute may be used for indicating anxiety. The closed facingto the side or open facing the camera view of interactions made whenfacing an avatar, a human like interface that looks and speaks as if ahuman being were a talking head on the computer screen may offer theclosest clues to viewer attitudes that can get closer to the informationobtained by direct face to face observation of a viewer. The method ofneural network pattern recognitions and analysis of pathways leading upto a sale is presented in the flowchart FIG. 12.

Observation of pathways taken will provide a working example as shown inthe bracket diagram on FIG. 10. With reference to the drawings ascenario shows and example of two persons, John and Joe, both of whichhave with known database or presurvey information to have a high levelof assertiveness on an assertive interactive/scale. Two individualsreceived different web site treatment according to recommendations basedon the combination of additional legacy variables depending upon theknown degree of internal/external control. The example shows John, whohas a high level of internal control who remains in control ofnegotiations, and Joe whose internal control level is lower and may beled or pushed by prompts of fear or guilt by the sales agent. Thefollowing simplified two scenario example works using the legacydatabase information for more accurate personalization and predictionfor the known non-anonymous with a psychological profile that can beused and proposed media and thematic choices determined more rapidly andaccurately than anonymous users. Anonymous users may still be trackedbased on IP address for each session tracking to establish usefulpredictive suggestions based on broad demographics, click stream andphysiologic responses that identify the traits of a demographic group.Neural networking or collaborative filtering observation of trends forphysiologic reactions correlated with a group that has the higher degreeof internal control may be used to suggest media and themes appropriatefor the group even without the personal legacy data. Multiple kinds ofpredicative models may be used for finding rules and making predictions.Neural networks are preferred based on fast learning characteristics.However, Linear regression, Logistic regression, collaborative filtering(clustering/filtering), and decision trees may be used for finding rulesand making predictions.

In a first scenario that utilizes legacy psychological/physiologicalprofile with decision trees and BioNet signal monitoring is describedwith reference to FIG. 10. Behavioral Prompt after a score that measureshigh Assertive & Interactive, all the way through to the Sale. Beginningat the START BOX, John logs On to Packard Motors Home Page. Two salestracks are described according to a simple decision tree based ondifferent levels of internal/external control. On the left hand side ofthe figure, internal control is high and remains high, in the control ofthe consumer. The eScore profile notes John has a desire to be assertiveand choose the media choice is “when assertive interactive threshold isreached chosen media is designed to meet consumer's content desire witha theme that suites the consumers self determination personality.”System is recording and responding with recommendation based on the realtime user responses clickstream browser activity and physiologic signalsthat indicate acceptance or rejection of media prompts. Profile (legacydata) and context are used to select follow-up media prompts and contentthemes in response to physiologic and viewer reactions (browseractivities) observed by the system.

A1 Cognitive Prompt (Internal Control): High threshold eScore is reachedfor internal control. At this point John, the consumer, takes charge ofchoices from web vendor. John sees his options as the master of his ownfate “Heads I win tails you lose. Now you pick one.” Collaborativefilter or neural network memory of the historic behavior of otherpersons with high internal control scores suggests the name your ownprice option.

A2 Cognitive Prompt (Expectation is to Name Your Price): High thresholdJohn accepts invitation to guess our invoice cost. Cost is disclosedwith an invitation for John to offer an amount to pay above invoice. Thecounter offering a price may use excess inventory price bidding systemslike priceline.com ubid.com and other bidding websites that auction orchoose a price based on offer and acceptance for individual or groupedbids. The on line exchange of an offer and reviewing the offer is theequivalent to a visit to the manager's office for price or bid approval.This process resembles in-store price haggling or bantering thatinvolves getting the manager approval of a minimum acceptable price fora dealer. Preliminary physiologic indicators of viewer response arehelpful inputs to assist the price selection system in assessing viewerresponse. Physiologic indicators of high stress and interest/disinterestthat could be considered the equivalent to a shrug, a blank stare, atoss of the head or head shaking signs that a live exchange wouldprovide a cue to the sales person to revisit benefits or add factors toreinforce consumer's desire to buy. Psychological/Physiological signalsare stable, showing no perturbation, no discomfort or stress. In otherwords, customer's voice does not crack under the strain of negotiation.

A3 Emotional Prompt (Greed): High threshold is reached. John is adiscount guy shown in his legacy profile. Neural data and collaborativedata suggest this is the time to deal. He wants the bargain sale price.Give him what he wants.

A4 Emotional Prompt (Anxiety) after Best Price & No Sale: Thecompetitive price offered is as low as retailer will go. System can makeno further price drop. But there is no acceptance yet. Based again onneural net data, collaborative filters for the greedy profile and neuralnetworks logistic regression an emotional hang-up anxiety is indicatedas possible. Suggested response is a 30 day price guarantee thatreassures that no better deal can be found and resolves the fear oflosing a better deal.

A5 Behavioral Prompt (Passive Avoidance): John likes guarantee but stillwon't buy. Neural net response is based on behavioral history usinglegacy data that confirms this is John's emotional footprint. He isavoiding a fear that the purchase represents.

A6 Emotional Prompt (Fear of Failure): John likes the deal and theretailer but is afraid to screw up. John's behavior is frozen perhapsobsessed subconsciously. Neural filter suggested response is a Trustprobe. Have we given you what you asked for?

A7 Cognitive Prompt (Trust): Relationship including trust element issold to John. Believe in us we won't let you down. Physiologic signalsstill indicate stress as John keeps this trust in his back pocket asexcuse if decision to buy was wrong. John will not be responsible for afailure because he puts his faith in the retailer.

Special eScore is an abbreviated identifier for a special consumercategory; in this case High Internal Control &Trust is noted after sale.The special eScores may be stored locally on consumer's machine viacookies or in a database linked to the consumer's identity on the webserver or on the PPI database to assist web vendors by rapidly noting amembership in a special customer category.

John believes sale was his choice and not reaction to sales. John getscar that he was looking for AND holds the belief that his actions wereof choice rather than reaction. The fact that John needs independentchoice and the trust element that takes him off the hook is noted on hispersonal weighted eScores and may be stored locally in a browser cookieand on a centrally stored eScore in a PPI database. At a minimum theemotional footprint for last three links traversed and associated themes“Fear of Failure” “trust” are added to John's legacy profile.

In a second scenario discussed with reference to FIG. 10, Joe logs on toPackard Motors Home Page. The path is shown beginning at the START BOX.He views various autos and selects one at box Al. Based on previoussurvey information obtained before logging on to this website variousscores have already been established including activated cellsAssertive, Interactive, Greed, and Fear of losing the deal. From Joe'svarious activated cells we his general modus operandi or behavior isassertive interactive (as opposed to passive/aggressive,passive/avoidance). Joe has responded with a high assertive/interactivescore when polled on his opinion about salesmen and various stylesthereof. In contrast with the example above Joes locus of control allowsJoe to follow the lead of a sales person.

B1 Cognitive Prompt (External Controls): Joe is assertive in researchingand choosing the retailer who he is confident will be able to fulfillhis need. However, once chosen, Joe wishes to believe the experts thathe has chosen “know best.” Joe relinquishes responsibility ofdetermining what is best for him not what choice to make once adetermination has been made. He switches to external control after thechoice of vendor is made.

B2 Cognitive Prompt (Assumptions and Ideals): Joe assumes theunsolicited $2000 discount off the MSRP list price is a result ofhonorable and generally “no haggle” policy promoted by the car dealer.Joe scores high on Assumptions and Ideals about himself and therefore isviewed as likely to expect similar deals from others with whom heinteracts. Joe's psychological/physiological signals show no stress.

B3 Emotional Prompt (Guilt): Joe is strong-armed with guilt promptreminding him he came to us—for a reason. We made choices based on whatyou requested and in your best interest. We didn't beat you up while yougot your discount. Thus, Joe is browbeaten to uphold his part of thedeal.

B4 Emotional Prompt (Fear): Joe is reminded how intimidating other cardealers can be when he is pressured to choose and negotiate for himself.Joe's psychological/physiological signals show stress.

B5 Behavioral Prompt (Passive Aggressive): Joe likes to deal offered andreally does not want to go elsewhere, but still will not buy. Joe wantsto buy but has lost face when brow beaten. Joe'spsychological/physiological signals show increased stress, by voicestress increase, heart rate increase, head shaking no (gesturerecognition).

B6 Emotional Prompt (Anger): Joe feels angry. He feels fear when carshopping and now holds out and “cuts off his nose to spite his face”even when a good deal is offered.

B7 Prompt (Ideals / Identity): Joe is reminded he is a special andrespected customer whom the president of the company would like topersonally like to contact him and thank him for his confidence. A saleis made.

The pattern of increased stress after negotiated sale price is a lowpressure push sales technique. This specific response may be used onlywhen the preceding flowchart schematic is present and the “key customer”sale would produce large income figures. The last three steps fearprompt, anger relief prompt ant appeal to ideals and vendor identity isrecorded in Joe's person al history.

A2 Special eScore High Internal Control after DIRECT SALE: If a sale ismade at A2 via direct path A1 to A2 the eScore system would record thesale pathway and interpret the sale to be a related to the High InternalControl for the individual and the group of similar consumers identifiedby collaborative filtering. PPI database correlation would give both theindividual and a filtered group a higher E-score result that indicatesthe closeness to the final step on a pathway that is successful for anindividual.

The system must be able to work when insufficient information isavailable. A higher E-score is associated with the pathway that succeedsin making a sale. However when the default website recommendation of acontent theme is overriding that is able to use default selections fortrial and error approaches and is also aware of failure to make a saleand updates are made to individual profile accordingly. As is notedbelow the pathways that available are unlimited. The system may suggesta move to an entirely different pathway based on knowledge that thealternate path may be fruitful.

Traversal to Alternative Presale pathway is noted in the eScore database. For example if the sale occurs via above pathway two steps A1 toA2 is and is correlated closely to other sales that have occurred via 5steps, B1A1 To B1B1 to B1B1 to B1B1A1 to B1B1B1, said correlations maybe used to channel users through the filter. If no sale was made at A2and the system later filters the user to A2A1, the system may cross overto point B1A1 prompt and progress accordingly from that point accordingto a preferred pathway. The eScore index is higher that individual andsuggests media type and content themes on the B1A1

The system continuously refreshes the eScore at every point traversed onthe matrix according to what route and how many steps were taken to getto a particular point in the matrix. The database may be maintained thatestablishes the shortest pathway (most proficient means) for pushing auser from one location in the matrix to another given point. Thedatabase may be maintained that establishes the greatest historicallikelihood of successful sale. The individual's historical sales recordindicates the pathway that succeeded in the past. The choice of bestpathway may be made by comparison of an eScore (likelihood of successfulsale) for each optional pathway. The system can then make availablesuitable media in any of several methods pop ups, ad banners, messagesuggestions, follow-up by postal mail, electronic mail, telephone call.Vendor cooperation is needed to make the database for externalfollow-up.

Override scenario details for tool buyer entering website with fixedpromotional plan. At A2B1 by response to a web picture ad for a powerwrench from Sears where there is no name your price option here price isnamed. The progression of pages shows A1B1 opening screen with modelsavailable and pricing. Offer to join affiliate program to get specialdiscounts is made at A1B2. Viewer acceptance of offer to join affiliateprogram gives access to limited time offers, specials and promotions.Display of product are synchronized monitoring ofpsychological/physiological stress/interest indicates some varying levelof excitement in individual products. The psychological/physiologicalresponse monitoring confirms interests that have been profiled in thesurveys and suggests other products that have increased the consumer'sinterest. Profile is updated with content information fromphysiological/psychological survey that is part of the questionnaire forjoining the affiliate program. Clickthrough behavior (joining theaffiliates for discounts) modified to the greed index. Suggests webthemes will focus on greed prompts on the items that have been indicatedto be of interest by survey and A1B2B2 lead to a sale or blank boxindicating another other chosen media email with price drop reminder andviewers indicates going to browse on another subject.

Key buying history indicators (kept by website) include: total amount ofpurchases, total amount returned or cancelled, average number of itemsper order, days since last order-recency, current back order dollars,purchasing cycle stage (1st first ad viewing, 2nd probing forconfiguration or sizing and detailed price information, to shopping donechoosing shipping and 3rd payment method, and post sale delivery returnwhich is first ad viewing), number of times ad is viewed, status activecustomer old or new (noted by first purchase date), number of purchasesin recent 6 months, average frequency of visits per month, averagefrequency of buys per month, last purchase date, total net profit, totalsales revenue, product categories purchased, total gross profit,purchase type (first, repeat, multi-repeat), returned dollars. Thesedata points are analyzed in combination with Biodata (physiologicsignals and gesture data) via a neural network to obtain select the bestmedia choice in terms of content, mood and theme rather than contentalone. Monitoring Physiologic signals may provide some reporting meansto the advertisers for evaluation of ad campaigns showing the effects ofads on consumers even before viewer sales decisions have occurred.

In summary, the client connection with a browser viewer communicatingvia IP packets to a server may operate in a variety of physical devices.A physiologic monitor is connected to the PC by hardware means selectedfrom the choices bi-directional parallel port, U.S.B (universal serialbus), serial COMM port, IEEE 1394 Firewire port, iRDA infrared port, andwireless Bluetooth data connection, which communicates physiologicinformation via Internet Protocol to a server. A physiologic monitor maybe a browser on a Web TV or satellite TV with hand held remote that usesa built in physiologic monitor and wireless communication channel forconnection to a server via IP communication means. A Pocket PC orPalm-Pilot® personal digital assistant (“PDA”) uses a connection toPCMCIA or compact flash data port for collateral connection to aphysiologic monitor. When a user logs into a web browser a firstphysiologic parameter baseline is established at a client connection, acomputer browser viewer and input device with physiologic monitor andtransmitted via IP to a server. When a user clicks on a banneradvertisement or otherwise begins to view ad content, an impression isestablished, the impression start time is stored, and the user'sidentification and second physiologic baseline is recorded. Later, whenthe user undertakes post-impression transactional activity such asdownloading software related to the impression, ordering products andservices related to the advertisement, and so on, the transactionalactivity along with the user's identification, time after impressionstart time and physiologic parameter changes from baselines arerecorded. Stored data at a tertiary central psychological serverindicates the cumulative number of times this individual has viewed themedia (ad content), the duration of views and results in terms ofbehaviors and physiologic responses to impressions to arrive a PPIphysiologic profile indicator.

Independent of content, media is categorized according to media type forexample “text only,” “highlighted text,” “animated text,” “spoken verbalaudio,” “musical jingle,” “music only not words,” “short video onlyanimation up to 5 seconds (animated gif),” “audio (music or voice) overshort animation,” “audio video segment of a variety short (up to 10second), medium (10 to 45 second), and standard (45 seconds to 120second) and long (more than),” online seminar “real audio windows mediaplayer programs,” web call offer (click to have sales person callpre-stored phone number immediately or at a preferred time).

Cellular phones are input/output devices connecting individuals to theWorld Wide Web. For purposes of studying biofeedback, it would be usefulto have electrodes built into the phone to gather and analyzebio-potentials while allowing interactive capabilities where feedbacksupports plurality of function. Applications may utilize artificialintelligence (algorithm) programming, collaborative filtering, andanalysis system to provide real time “E-Score” which continuouslyrefresh, depending on user and end user objectives. Applicants' phonehas bioelectrodes and sensors on the surface of the phone where themastoid process, condyle, pinna, and the ear canal touch the phoneattaching an instrumentation amplifier with a high CMMR common moderejection ration that is capable of rejecting interfering electricalsignals. With bioelectrode sensors, the voltage of an isometric musclecontractions amplified by the instrumentation amplifier may besufficient to trigger the phone and create a signal. This data and otherbio information can be transmitted easily to the computer via thedigital ports and wirelessly or gathered, analyzed, and utilized at theBio-Phone apparatus itself. Applicants' phone also allows biopotentialinformation to be stored, analyzed, or utilized at the phone apparatusitself, at the backend user, or at the external data source.

Standard electromyography, oximetryoximeter, digital thermometers,photoplethysmography and GSR galvanic skin response measurementtechnologies have not been implemented in the input/output device usedwith computers. For purposes of studying biofeedback and stress theforegoing invention presents a novel location or electrodes used tomonitor these bioelectric measurements. Historically, two forms of EDA,electro-dermal activity, have been studied. The most common form isexiomatically recorded activity in which an external electrical currentis passed through the skin. Activity is indicated by the skin'selectrical response or its reciprocal, conductance. The second form isendosomatically recorded activity (skin potentials) that involvesmonitoring voltage differences between electrodes at two points on thesurface of the skin. The endosomatic method is less common inbiofeedback than exosomatically recorded skin conductance.

Cellular phones have become widely used input/output devices forconnecting to the World Wide Web due to their convenience and wirelessfeatures. The exemplary embodiment of FIGS. 14 though 19 uses cellularphone technology in the form of a bioelectrode phone (Bio-Phone) with aplurality of electrodes and sensors in addition to various controlbuttons and fingertip contacts to measure temperature, pulse rate, bloodvolume pulses and respiration. Electrodes along the phone bodybioelectrode input device measure galvanic skin response andelectromyography.

The exemplary Bio-Phone 401 (FIG. 19) fits into a user's ear.Alternatively, the Bio-Phone could be a hand-held phone or a combinationof a held-held phone with the ear piece communicating with each other.Any of these could contain the electrodes or sensors. The ear piece andhand-held phone would communicate with each other and has sensors 402,403, 404 and 405 along the phone body as bioelectrode input devices tomeasure breath, voice stress, voice pattern analyzer, head and bodyposture, trigger function decibel analysis, galvanic skin response, bodyand head posture recognition monitor, facial recognition device, voicesignature analyzer and authentication, EMG, pulse oximeter, thermometer,electromagnetic radiant monitor, body fluid, earwax and pheromoneanalyzer. The circuitry for these functions integrates with voiceactivation and other standard cell phone functions. These embodimentsconnect the bioelectrodes on the phone to a set of instrumentationamplifiers that measure bipolar electrical potentials on the surface ofthe skin.

The Bio-Phone also stores, analyzes, and utilizes biopotentialinformation at the Bio-Phone apparatus, at the backend server, or at theexternal data source. The Bio-Phone also may change color or have partschange color based upon the bio information (e.g., temperature) of theuser, the content of the data being gathered and analyzed, the contentof the response back to the user and the end users. Display 406 is oneway to display data including color change. A hand-held phone also couldchange color. Alternatively, part of the housing 408, e.g., the base orouter cover, may be constructed of a material that changes colordepending upon the user's bio-info, content of the data being gatheredand analyzed, content of the response back to the user from end user,and based on end users protocols. Other outputs such as LEDs/LCDs alsomay provide visual output.

The Infrared Data Association (IrDA) specifies three infraredcommunication standards: IrDA-Data, IrDA-Control, and a new emergingstandard called Alr. IrDA refers to the IrDA-Data standard. In general,IrDA provides wireless connectivity technologies for devices that wouldnormally use cables for connectivity. IrDA is a point-to-point, narrowangle (30° cone), ad-hoc data transmission standard designed to operateover a distance of 0 to 1 meter and at transmission speeds of 9600 bpsto 16 Mbps.

Bluetooth is a radio frequency (RF) specification for short-range,point-to-multipoint voice and data transfer. General Bluetoothcharacteristics include: (1) Operates in the 2.4 GHzIndustrial-Scientific-Medical (ISM) band. (2) Uses Frequency Hop (FH)spread spectrum, which divides the frequency band into a number of hopchannels. During a connection, radio transceivers hop from one channelto another in a pseudo-random fashion. (3) Supports up to eight devicesin a Piconet (two or more Bluetooth units sharing a channel). (4)Built-in security; (5) Non line-of-sight transmission through walls andbriefcases. (6) Omni-directional. (7) Supports both isochronous andasynchronous services; easy integration of TCP/IP for networking. (8)Regulated by governments worldwide.

The phone body 408 (FIG. 19) is approximately 3″ long. It has a top end410, a bottom end 412 and front and rear walls 414, 416 and two sidewalls 418 and 420. Electrodes and sensors 402, 403 and 404 are locatedalong inside side wall and front wall. Sensor 405 is one mouth piece422. Buttons, fingertip contacts and sensors, e.g., 426, 428 and 430 arelocated on outside side wall and rear wall. A rotating/swiveling earplug 432 approximately 1 cm long has sensors/contacts 404 in the earcanal. The mouth piece 422 is a thin tubular extension at bottom endapproximately 1 ½ inches long with sensors and microphone located at tipend.

The various of electrodes connect to an instrumentation amplifier foroutputting a biopotential signal coupled to a means for transmitting thebiopotential signal wirelessly. See FIGS. 14 and 18.

The Bio-Phone embodies capabilities and applications including theability to gather, analyze, and utilize the user's biopotentialsemploying algorithm programming, collaborative filtering and analysisprogramming to provide “real time” scoring applications (“E-Score viathe Bio-Net System”) at the Bio-Phone apparatus and at an externalsource wirelessly via the computer/World Wide Web.

A current source connects between the first electrode and the secondelectrode and between the first electrode and third electrode to performimpedance measuring between first electrodes and other electrodes. SeeFIG. 16.

The electrodes and sensors measuring blood volume pulse, galvanic skinresponse, electromyography, pulse rate and a digital thermometer may belocated on fingertip contacts that connect wirelessly to the Bio-Phone.

An oximetryoximeter may be embodied in the earplug contact with a meansto couple a computer.

The bioelectrode input device also has finger tip receptacles for thefirst and index finger digits. These finger tip contacts can also gatherbiometric data including blood volume pulse and pulse rate viaphotoplethysmograph and respiration via oximetryoximeter while alsoserving the dual function as a button to trigger/activate otherfunctions. The electrodes in a plurality of arrangements connected to aninstrumentation amplifier may be used to record EMG eletromyogramsignals. Adding a current source between electrodes permits galvanicskin response (GSR) impedance measurements with the instrumentationamplifier. The Bio-Phone may also be encased in material which willchange color based on end users protocols. The bioelectrode inputdevice, Bio-Phone, functions as a wireless cell phone capable ofperforming standard and state of the art cell phone functions includingvoice activation and voice processing, picture, video, recording, andcomputer Internet connection.

The drawings do not show currently available wireless means for directcoupling to a computer a group of wireless connection means whichcomprises IrDA and Bluetooth. Use of these wireless means nonethelessrequires a direct connection of a transmitter receiver to a telephoneappliance and a corresponding direct connection of a second transmitterreceiver at the computer at the other end of the wireless link. Thistype of connection is considered to be a direct coupling of signals bythe inventors.

The foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles ofthe invention. Further, since numerous modifications and changes willreadily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limitthe invention to the exact construction and operation shown anddescribed, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalentsmay be resorted to, falling within the scope of the invention.

1. An Internet-enabled wireless web device for gathering and processingbiometric data, the device connected in wireless communication with aserver running an application, comprising: a web-enabled cellular phonerunning an application, the application functioning to accept inputsfrom a first communications port and a second communications port, thefirst communications port including a generic input/output port and thesecond communications port including a wireless link to a network, thegeneric input/output port for receipt of a user's biometric parameters.